After an election plagued by violence and accusations of fraud and hacking, the Kenyan opposition rejected on Friday the announcement of the reelection of President Uhuru Kenyatta by Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission, calling Tuesday’s election “a charade”.
According to official figures, the incumbent Mr Kenyatta secured 54.27 percent of the ballots cast, while his rival, Raila Odinga, won 44.74 percent.
With Kenyatta receiving more than 50 percent of the votes, he will not be forced into a second round of voting.
The five-party alliance backing opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga said the commission's announcement of Kenyatta’s victory even after it raised concerns about “several serious irregularities and anomalies” over the vote. The coalition said Odinga, 72, won the election and said his supporters wouldn’t accept the result.
“I can tell you, Kenyans always rise up,” Senator James Orengo, the alliance’s deputy chief election agent, told reporters in the capital Nairobi. “The resilience of Kenyans to deal with impunity, to deal with violation of their rights, every time those rights have been trampled upon, they’ve always risen up.”
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Kenya braced for violence before election announcement
Two killed in riots after Kenya's opposition claims election was rigged
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The opposition’s dispute over the results sets the stage for a repeat of the election-related violence that has stalked East Africa’s biggest economy since Kenya became a multiparty democracy in 1991. In the worst outbreak, ethnic clashes left at least 1,100 people dead after a disputed 2007 vote.
“There are so many questions unanswered, it’s very easy to come to a conclusion that there is mischief going on,” said Dismas Mokua, an analyst at Nairobi-based risk advisory firm Trintari. “The failure to announce results at the constituency centers raises so many questions about transparency.”
The normally bustling streets of Nairobi, the business hub, have been largely deserted since election day as residents stayed home bracing for trouble and security forces deployed in the city center.
“Kenya is at a standstill,” Kiprono Kittony, chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce & Industry, told Bloomberg on Friday. “We are hoping there will be a conclusion to this today and for people to be able to go back and start earning their livelihoods because this era of suspense is very, very devastating economically.”
With preliminary results tallied from all but 341 of the nation’s 40,883 polling stations, Kenyatta has 8.17 million votes, compared with 6.76 million for Odinga, according to the IEBC’s website. Candidates need a simple majority along with a quarter of the votes in half of Kenya’s 47 counties to secure victory.
Odinga described the preliminary results as “fake” and said hackers gained access to the election computer system by using the identity of the commission’s technology manager who was murdered in late July. IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati said on Thursday that hackers tried and failed to breach the voting system.
“We want to tell Chebukati to stop cooking results,” Babu Owino, a member of Odinga’s coalition, told reporters on Friday. “We will do everything humanly possible to ensure that Raila is sworn in.”
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Mobile phone packages comparison
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
The team
Photographer: Mateusz Stefanowski at Art Factory
Videographer: Jear Valasquez
Fashion director: Sarah Maisey
Make-up: Gulum Erzincan at Art Factory
Model: Randa at Art Factory Videographer’s assistant: Zanong Magat
Photographer’s assistant: Sophia Shlykova
With thanks to Jubail Mangrove Park, Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
