President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has been elected to another seven-year term in Equatorial Guinea, where the 80-year-old has held the office since August 1979.

The National Electoral Board said Obiang received 405,910 votes, accounting for a notably high 94.9% of all votes cast in the West African nation. In reporting results, the board said it was “scrupulously respecting the sovereign will of the people” following last Sunday’s vote.

Presidential candidates Andrés Esono and Buenaventura Monsuy received 9,684 votes and 2,855 votes, respectively.

Obiang’s Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), a coalition of political parties, also kept its hold in the legislature and in the country’s municipal offices. That includes all 100 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, all 55 seats in the Senate, and all 588 offices contested at the municipal level.

Despite his fragile health, Obiang’s re-election was fully expected in Equatorial Guinea, where opposition political leaders and human rights activists are routinely silenced and corruption is common.

That pressure continues following a 2017 coup attempt and questions about succession by his son, Teodorin Obiang, who has been convicted on corruption and fraud-related charges in multiple countries including France, the United States and Brazil.

More than 100 people have been detained since the elder Obiang announced his intent to run for office in September, according to human rights lawyer Tutu Alicante, head of the Equatorial Guinea Justice organization.

Although Obiang isn’t the oldest leader in Africa—President Paul Biya of Cameroon is 89 years old—he has now become the longest-running elected leader in the world.

Source: Africa Times

Equatorial Guinea on Monday closed its land borders with Cameroon and Gabon to prevent what it describes as “infiltration” groups intent on “destabilising” the  presidential election campaign starting this week.

Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue had said the measure would “prevent the infiltration of groups who may attempt to destabilise the (election) campaign”, which begins on Thursday.

He did not fix a date for the reopening of the borders when he announced last Tuesday that only airports would remain open.

A local official in the northern border town of Ebebiyin told AFP on condition of anonymity that the frontier had been closed since Monday morning.

Initially scheduled for April 2023, the presidential poll was brought forward to November 20 to coincide with legislative, senate and local elections following a decree by long-serving leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

The war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic were cited as the reasons behind the decision to hold the costly votes simultaneously.

The central African nation has heightened border security since what the authorities described as an aborted coup attempt in late 2017 that aimed to kill President Obiang.

The coup was allegedly orchestrated by Equatorial Guineans and foreign mercenaries crossing from Cameroon.

Equatorial Guinea regularly shuts its borders on security grounds despite a regional agreement on the free movement of people and goods with Cameroon, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic and Chad.

The country possesses major oil and gas resources, but a majority of its 1.3 million people live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

Source: AFP

The authorities in Kinshasa on Saturday announced they were expelling the Rwandan ambassador as M23 rebels they accuse Kigali of supporting made fresh gains in the east of the troubled country.

The announcement, made by government spokesman Patrick Muyaya, came after a government meeting to assess the security situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The latest advance by rebel fighters prompted the UN peacekeeping mission there to increase its “troop alert level” and boost support for the army.

Muyaya said that in recent days, “a massive arrival of elements of the Rwandan element to support the M232 terrorists” against DRCongo’s troops had been observed.

“This criminal and terrorist adventure” had forced thousands of people to flee their homes, he added.

Given Rwanda’s continued support for the rebels, the defence council, presided over by President Felix Tshisekedi, had decided to ask the government to give Rwandan ambassador Vincent Karega 48 hours to leave the country.

Rebel advances

M23 rebel fighters have seized control of Kiwanju and Rutshuru-centre along the strategic RN2 highway in the eastern province of North Kivu, local officials and witnesses told AFP by telephone earlier Saturday.

Rebels had also been seen at Rugari, just 30 kilometres (20 miles) down the RN2 from provincial capital Goma, which it links with the north and Uganda.

Four peacekeepers were wounded by mortar fire and shooting at Kiwanja, the mission announced.

“Kiwanja and Rutshuru-centre are in M23 hands,” said civil society representative Jacques Niyonzima.

“The rebels have held two meetings and told local people to go about their work and those displaced to return to their villages, saying security was now guaranteed,” he said.

At Kiwanja, “in our area we recorded three deaths, a man, a woman and her child, killed by shells that landed on houses”, said local resident Eric Muhindo.

A general hospital official in Rutshuru added: “There were several wounded in Kiwanja after a small amount of resistance”.

“Calm has returned. People are moving about and shops are opening,” the official said, asking not to be named.

Hostile acts

The UN’s MONUSCO mission condemned “the hostile acts of M23”, the rebel group, and called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

The mission said on Twitter it was providing “air support, intelligence and equipment” as well as medical assistance.

The peacekeepers said they were “mobilised in support” of DRC’s army after residents reported at least 10 people dead since Sunday and dozens more injured near RN2.

MONUSCO said it had set up an “operations coordination centre” with the army and was carrying out reconnaissance and surveillance flights, but did not provide further details about the alert level.

M23, a mostly Congolese Tutsi group, resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years, accusing the government of having failed to honour an agreement over the demobilisation of its fighters.

It has since captured swathes of territory in North Kivu, including the key town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June.

The front line between Congolese troops and M23 rebels had been calm in recent weeks until last week, when clashes erupted again.

Last Sunday, M23 fighters captured the village of Ntamugenga in the Rutshuru area. It lies four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the RN2 where the clashes spread on Thursday.

Tension with Rwanda

The UN humanitarian affairs office in the DRC said this week around 34,500 people had fled the Rutshuru region.

The group’s resurgence has destabilised regional relations in central Africa, with the DRC accusing its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the militia.

Rwanda denies the charges and counters that DRC works with a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis, the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which Kinshasa also denies.

A report by independent UN experts seen by AFP in August found that Kigali had provided direct support to the M23.

And this week a US representative to the United Nations spoke of Rwandan defence forces providing assistance to the M23.

M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before a joint Congolese-UN offensive drove it out.

The militia is one of scores of armed groups that roam eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars that flared late last century.

Relations between Kigali and Kinshasa appeared to have improved when Tshisekedi took over as president in DR Congo in 2019 and held several meetings with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

But the revival of M23 put an end to that rapprochement.

Source: AFP

Political parties, social and religious groups and representatives of the security forces gather Friday to chart the next phase in Burkina Faso’s future after the country’s latest coup.

The forum in the capital Ouagadougou will take place two weeks after the jihadist-torn Sahel state was rocked by its second military takeover in less than nine months.

A 34-year-old captain, Ibrahim Traore, leading a faction of disgruntled junior officers, forced out Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Damiba had seized power only in January, toppling the country’s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

The talks opening on Friday are scheduled to appoint a successor to Damiba as transitional president — a head of state who will rule in the interim before power is eventually returned to civilians.

Supporters of Traore are clamouring for him to be that man, although he has outwardly said he does not want the job.

The head of the forum’s organising committee, Colonel Celestin Compaore, said the conference “will examine and adopt (a) charter of transition, appoint a transitional president in line with the charter and receive any proposals for the proper execution of the charter.”

Troubled country

One of the world’s poorest nations, Burkina Faso has a long history of coups since independence from France in 1960.

The latest takeovers are rooted in unrest within army ranks over a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

Thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million have been displaced.

Barely a week goes by without the announcement of a bloody attack on the poorly-equipped security forces. More than a third of the country lies outside government control.

Traore said Burkina would uphold a pledge that Damiba made to the West African bloc ECOWAS involving new elections and a return to civilian government by July 2024 at the latest.

But like Damiba before him, Traore defended the coup on the grounds that the authorities were failing to do enough against the jihadists.

The coup announcement on September 30 said it was time to “refocus the transition (interim military rule) on the security emergency”.

Damiba fled to neighbouring Benin on October 2, after a weekend of violent protests that also targeted the French embassy and cultural centre and saw demonstrators raise Russian flags.

Vocal support

Traore said he would only stay at the helm to carry out “current business” but at meetings in Ouagadougou and Burkina’s second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, supporters have been clamouring for him to be appointed to the top job.

“Captain Ibrahim Traore must fully implement the reason for which he came,” said Oscar Seraphin Ky, one of his backers.

France, a close ally in Burkina’s fight against the jihadists, has watched the new turmoil with deep concern, especially the anti-French sentiment.

A coup in Mali in 2020 sparked friction with France and led to the country’s military entwinement with Russia. French troops that had been fighting jihadists in Mali for nine years pulled out this year after the row escalated.

The French ambassador to Burkina Faso, Luc Hallade, has advised French citizens to limit their movements on Friday to “what is strictly necessary… out of concern for new protest movements”.

According to local pollster Apidon, 53 percent of those questioned would prefer to have Traore in charge.

Among his most ardent supporters, the scale of Burkina’s security crisis makes it crucial to have a military man in charge, it found.

Source: AFP

Captain Ibrahim Traore was appointed as president of Burkina Faso on Wednesday, according to an official statement, after the West African country’s second coup in less than nine months.

The impoverished Sahel nation plunged into renewed turmoil at the weekend when Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba — who had seized power in January — was toppled by newly emerged rival Traore, leading a faction of disgruntled junior officers.

It was the latest putsch in the Sahel region much of which, like Burkina Faso, is battling a growing Islamist insurgency.

Traore has been appointed as “Head of State, Supreme Head of the Armed Forces”, according to the official statement read out on national television by spokesman for the ruling junta Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho.

The statement said that Traore would now be the “guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity… and continuity of the State.”

Damiba fled to Togo following the two-day standoff, which was defused by religious and community leaders.

Burkina is struggling with a seven-year-old jihadist campaign that has claimed thousands of lives, forced nearly two million people to flee their homes and left more than a third of the country outside government control.

Swelling anger within the armed forces prompted Damiba’s coup against the elected president in January.

Appointing himself transitional head of state, Damiba had vowed to make security the country’s top priority — but after a brief lull the attacks revived, claiming hundreds of lives.

Tensions

Delegates from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) wrapped up a fact-finding mission Tuesday and held meetings with religious and traditional leaders and Traore.

Traore said the ECOWAS visit was to “make contact with the new transition authorities” as part of the support that Burkina Faso derived from the region.

Speculation has risen that Burkina’s new leader may follow other fragile regimes in French-speaking Africa and forge close ties with Moscow at the expense of France, the region’s former colonial power and traditional ally.

The dramatic takeover coincided with violent anti-French protests and the sudden emergence of Russian flags among demonstrators.

On the streets, demonstrators’ slogans included “France get out”, “No to ECOWAS interference”, and “Long live Russia-Burkina cooperation”.

The United States has warned the junta of the risks of allying with Russia, saying they condemned “any attempt to exacerbate the current situation in Burkina Faso”.

“We strongly encourage the new transitional government to adhere to the agreed-upon timeline for a return to a democratically elected, civilian-led government,” a State Department spokesman said earlier this week.

Traore has previously said he would stand by a pledge that Damiba gave ECOWAS for restoring civilian rule by July 2024.

Source: AFP

Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld William Ruto’s victory in the August 9 presidential election, ending weeks of political uncertainty and delivering a blow to challenger Raila Odinga who had alleged fraud in the poll.

“This is a unanimous decision. The petitions are hereby dismissed, as a consequence we declare the first respondent (Ruto) as president-elect,” Chief Justice Martha Koome said.

Deputy President Ruto, 55, scraped to victory by a margin of less than two percentage points in a tightly-fought race against Odinga, a veteran opposition politician now backed by the ruling party.

Odinga filed a petition to Kenya’s top court last month, claiming he had “enough evidence” to show he had in fact won the election, which ranked as one of Africa’s most expensive polls.

Although voting day passed off peacefully, the results sparked angry protests in Odinga strongholds and there are fears that the dispute could fuel violence in a country with a history of post-poll unrest.

Judges spent the last two weeks sifting through boxes of evidence to establish if any irregularities were substantial enough to nullify the election, as was the case with the August 2017 presidential poll, which Odinga also challenged.

Koome began reading out the verdict shortly after midday (0900 GMT), methodically listing the court’s response to the nine issues at the heart of the case.

She said the technology used by the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) met the standards of “integrity, verifiability, security and transparency”.

Any “irregularities were not of such magnitude as to affect the final results of the presidential election”, she said, dismissing all the claims made by the petitioners.

Odinga’s 72-page petition alleged hackers broke into IEBC servers and uploaded doctored result forms, but the claim was dismissed by the court.

Both the candidates had pledged to respect the verdict, which sparked celebrations by Ruto supporters.

Cost of living crisis

After 2017’s annulment, the IEBC was under heavy pressure to deliver a clean poll.

But this year’s outcome sparked a rift within the IEBC itself, with four of its seven commissioners accusing chairman Wafula Chebukati of running an “opaque” process.

Chebukati denied the allegations, insisting he carried out his duties according to the law of the land despite facing “intimidation and harassment”.

Since 2002, no presidential poll outcome in Kenya has gone uncontested.

At around 65 percent, turnout was sharply lower than in the August 2017 election, with observers saying it reflected growing disillusionment among citizens.

Odinga, who previously said he was cheated of victory in the 2007, 2013 and 2017 polls, had framed the legal battle as a fight “for democracy and good governance”.

Ruto in turn had urged the court to toss out the petition, accusing Odinga of trying “to have another bite at the cherry through a judicially-forced re-run”.

The 2017 poll saw dozens of protesters killed at the hands of police.

Kenya’s worst electoral violence occurred after the 2007 vote, when more than 1,100 people died in politically motivated clashes involving rival tribes.

Ruto will be sworn in on September 13, becoming Kenya’s fifth president since independence from Britain in 1963 and taking the reins of a country beset by inflation, high unemployment and a crippling drought.

Source: AFP

Angola’s MPLA party was on Monday declared the winner of a closely fought election, extending its decades long rule in the oil-rich country and handing President Joao Lourenco a second term.

Angola’s MPLA party was on Monday declared the winner of a closely fought election, extending its decades long rule in the oil-rich country and handing President Joao Lourenco a second term.

He promised to be the “president of all Angolans” and to open dialogue after the electoral commission announced the results, which saw the opposition make large gains.

“This is a victory for Angola and Angolans in general,” Lourenco, 68, said in his inaugural address shortly after the unveiling of the result of the August 24 ballot.

“This vote was a vote of confidence, which gives us the immense responsibility of promoting dialogue and social consultation”.

The National Electoral Commission (CNE) reported the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola won 51.17 percent of the ballots against 43.95 percent for the main challenger, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Despite the victory, the outcome — the tightest in Angola’s history — marked a record low for the MPLA and might yet end up in court after UNITA had earlier rejected provisional results.

Several members of the electoral commission did not sign off on the final tally, poll officials said on Monday.

The MPLA has traditionally wielded control over the electoral process as well as state media, and opposition and civic groups had raised fears of voter tampering.

UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior, 60, last week called for an international panel to review the count.

International observers have raised some concerns including questions over the electoral roll and biased reporting by state-owned television, but most said voting was peaceful and well organised.

Lowered majority

The MPLA, a former Marxist liberation movement, has ruled Angola for nearly half a century since independence from Portugal in 1975.

But it has seen a steady decline in support over recent elections.

While it romped to victory with 71.84 percent of the vote in 2012, it only garnered 61 percent five years later.

UNITA scored 26.67 percent in 2017 elections and contested the official count.

Alex Vines, of the UK-based think tank Chatham House, said that while UNITA was likely to challenge the count also this time, the former rebel movement had reasons to be happy.

“It’s an amazing result for UNITA when you think that 20 years ago, they were defeated on the battlefield,” he said.

“Politics will have to change in Angola now. There’s going to have to be the politics of compromise,” he said.  

The results gave the MPLA 124 of the 220 parliamentary seats up for grabs while UNITA won 90.

Turnout was low, with only about 45 percent of those registered casting their ballots, which pointed to a growing disillusionment with politics, said Vines.

The United States on Monday called on all parties “to express themselves peacefully and to resolve any grievances in accordance with applicable legal processes”.

“We will continue to closely follow the electoral process,” the State Department said in a statement before the final results were announced.

Second term  

The latest election has been overshadowed by a struggling economy, inflation, poverty, drought and the death of Lourenco’s predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Dos Santos was buried in Luanda at a solemn funeral on Sunday.

The opposition has proved popular in urban areas, winning in the capital Luanda and among youth disaffected with the ruling party.

Angola is Africa’s second largest crude producer, but the oil bonanza has been accompanied by corruption and nepotism.

Lourenco, a former general educated in the Soviet Union, was first elected in 2017.

He is credited with far-reaching reforms since taking power, including boosting financial transparency, tackling graft, and promoting business-friendly policies to lure foreign investors.

But critics say his anti-graft crusade has been one-sided and aimed at settling political scores, targeting children and cronies of dos Santos.

His economic reforms have also so far failed to translate into better living conditions for most Angolans, critics say.

“With this vote of confidence, it is time to continue the reforms necessary to make Angola a more prosperous and more developed country,” Lourenco said, promising to pay particular attention “to the expectations of young people”.

Source: AFP

Angolans were casting ballots on Wednesday in what was expected to be the most competitive vote in their country’s democratic history, with incumbent President Joao Lourenco squaring up against charismatic opposition leader Adalberto Costa Junior.

The election has been overshadowed by Angola’s many woes – a struggling economy, inflation, poverty and drought, compounded by the death of a former strongman president.

The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which has ruled the oil-rich nation for nearly five decades, is facing its most serious challenge since the first multiparty vote in 1992.

“It’s been 20 years of peace and we are still poor,” said Lindo, a 27-year-old electrician queueing up to vote in Nova Vida, a middle-class suburb of the capital Luanda.

“The people want change — the government doesn’t provide for people’s basic needs,” said Lindo, who gave only his first name.

Eight political parties are running, but the real contest lies between the MPLA and its long-standing rival and ex-rebel movement the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Opinion polls suggest that support for the MPLA – which won 61 percent of the vote in 2017 elections – will dwindle, while the UNITA, which has entered an electoral pact with two other parties, will make gains.

But UNITA’s inroads might not be enough to unseat Lourenco, 68, who succeeded veteran leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos five years ago.

“The margins will be closer than ever before… but the advantages of incumbency mean MPLA is still odds on to pip Costa (Junior),” said Eric Humphery-Smith, an analyst at London-based Verisk Maplecroft.

Appeal to vote

The MPLA traditionally wields a grip over the electoral process and state media in Angola, but the opposition is urging supporters not to be intimidated.

“This is a historic day,” Costa Junior declared, after casting his ballot.

“It is important that this day be a celebration,” he said, urging “full turnout and for all ballots to be counted.”

Lourenco urged citizens to come out and vote because “in the end it’s all of us who will emerge winners and it is democracy that wins” he said after casting his ballot at Lusiada de Angola University in Luanda.

Opposition and civic groups have raised fears of voter tampering, and social media is rife with claims of dead people registered to vote.

Costa Junior, 60, is popular among young people — a significant and growing voting bloc — and has pledged to “eradicate poverty” and create jobs.

Poverty and graft

Lourenco, a Soviet-educated former general who had promised a new era for Angola when he was first elected, has trumpeted a list of achievements.

He is credited with making far-reaching reforms in one of southern Africa’s economic powerhouses.

They include boosting transparency in the financial sector and efficiency in parastatal organisations, and promoting business-friendly policies to lure foreign investors. His government has managed to attract back global diamond miner De Beers, which had quit 10 years ago.

But little has changed for most of Angola’s 33 million people for whom life is a daily grind.

Angola is Africa’s second largest crude producer, but the oil bonanza also nurtured corruption and nepotism under dos Santos, who died in Spain last month.

The low-key, night-time repatriation of his remains in the final leg of campaigning has added a macabre touch to the election.

Dos Santos will be buried on Sunday, which would have been his 80th birthday.

Analysts warn that any MPLA attempts to capitalise on the funeral could backfire, given widespread anger over his legacy among young people.

Some 14.7 million people are registered to vote at 13,200 polling stations across the vast southern African nation.

Angolans living overseas are for the first time able to cast ballots from abroad.

Results are expected within a few days. In past elections, results have been contested, in a process that can take several weeks.

Source: AFP

France on Thursday denied accusations by Mali’s foreign minister that the French army has provided support to Islamist groups and violated Malian airspace. Mali’s relations with Paris have been deteriorating since a junta took power in an August 2020 coup, eventually culminating in the withdrawal of French troops that was completed on Monday after a nearly decade-long mission.

The accusations mark a new low in relations amid reports that Russian mercenaries hired by Mali’s military government were flocking to fill the power vacuum left by French troops leaving the country, prompting new worries among Western powers over the security situation in the Sahel region.

Mali says France has violated its airspace and delivered arms to Islamist militants in an attempt to destabilise the West African country, the latest in a barrage of accusations that have marked a bitter end to their once-close relations.

In a letter to the head of the United Nations Security Council dated Monday, Mali’s foreign affairs minister, Abdoulaye Diop, said its airspace has been breached more than 50 times this year, mostly by French forces using drones, military helicopters and fighter jets. “These flagrant violations of Malian airspace were used by France to collect information for terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and to drop arms and ammunition to them,” the letter said.

Mali provided no evidence that France had supplied arms to Islamist groups. France has spent a decade and billions of dollars to stamp out Islamist militants, some with links to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, in its former colony and across the Sahel region.

“France has obviously never supported, directly or indirectly, these terrorist groups, which remain its designated enemies across the planet,” the French embassy in Mali said in a Twitter thread.

The embassy said that 53 French soldiers had died during its nine-year mission in Mali and that France had killed hundreds of Islamist fighters to restore security for Malians. France has also suffered Islamist attacks at home, it added.

German UN soldiers said they saw Russian forces landing at the airport in Gao and unloading equipment on Monday, the day the last French soldiers left, according to a German military document dated Tuesday.

Fighters from the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company, have been supporting the Malian army in its fight against Islamist insurgents since late last year.

French forces were welcomed as heroes in Mali in 2013 after the government in Bamako asked France for help against the Islamist groups that had taken over much of the north, including the fabled city of Timbuktu.

But a series of setbacks and prolonged attacks by the militants have soured relations, which became worse since a military junta overthrew the government in 2020 and later overthrew an interim civilian cabinet.

Mali’s ruling junta called in February for France to withdraw its troops “without delay”. In May the junta announced it was leaving the defence accords it concluded with France, condemning “flagrant violations” of its national sovereignty by French troops.

Its military rulers had pledged to return power to civilians in 2022 but subsequently extended the timetable to 2024, incurring regional sanctions.

Reported by AFP and REUTERS

President-elect William Ruto is one of Kenya’s wealthiest men but has long portrayed himself as “hustler-in-chief” — the champion of the poor and downtrodden.

Defying corruption allegations going back years, the ambitious 55-year-old clawed his way to the centre of power by playing on his religious faith and humble beginnings selling chickens by the roadside.

His duel against former prime minister Raila Odinga in the August 9 elections was something that he painted in simple terms.

It was, he said, a battle between ordinary “hustlers” struggling to put food on the table and the elite Kenyatta and Odinga “dynasties” that had dominated Kenyan politics for decades.

“We want everyone to feel the wealth of this country. Not just a few at the top,” Ruto had said as he criss-crossed the country promoting his “bottom-up” economic plan.

The shadowy rags-to-riches businessman had effectively run as a challenger after a very public and acrimonious falling out with outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, who backed Odinga for the top job.

Despite a race dominated by mudslinging, Ruto on Monday struck a conciliatory tone after his win, vowing to work with “all leaders” after the outcome split the election commission and sparked fears of violence.

“There is no room for vengeance,” Ruto said, adding: “I am acutely aware that our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck.”

‘Effective strategist’

Ruto had served as deputy president under Kenyatta since 2013, supporting him in two elections with a promise that he would have the backing of his boss in this year’s vote.

It was a political marriage of convenience forged in the aftermath of deadly post-poll violence in 2007-2008 that largely pitted the Kikuyu — Kenyatta’s tribe — against the Kalenjin, Ruto’s ethnic group.

Both men were hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC), accused of stoking the ethnic unrest.

The cases were eventually dropped, with the prosecution complaining of a relentless campaign of witness intimidation.

But Ruto was left out in the cold after Kenyatta shook hands with longtime foe Odinga in a dramatic switch of political allegiance in 2018.

He bounced back with a campaign that was directed as much at Kenyatta as his rival at the ballot box, blaming the government for Kenya’s economic woes and even accusing the president of threatening him and his family

“Ruto is seen by many people to be one of the most effective strategists in Kenyan politics,” Nic Cheeseman, a political scientist at the University of Birmingham in Britain, said before the poll.

‘Perfect storm’

Clad in the bright yellow of his United Democratic Alliance, whose symbol is the humble wheelbarrow, Ruto sought to reach out to those suffering most from the Covid-induced cost of living crisis that has been aggravated by the war in Ukraine.

Ruto “picked the perfect storm,” Kenyan political analyst Nerima Wako-Ojiwa said before the election.

Observers attribute Ruto’s aggressiveness to the fact he has had to struggle to get everything he has achieved in life from his lowly start in Kenya’s Rift Valley, the Kalenjin heartland.

“I sold chicken at a railway crossing near my home as a child… I paid (school) fees for my siblings,” he once said.

“God has been kind to me and through hard work and determination, I have something.”

His fortune is now said to run into many millions of dollars, with interests spanning hotels, real estate and insurance as well as a vast chicken farm.

A teetotal father of six who describes himself as a born-again Christian, Ruto seldom lets a speech go by without thanking or praising God or reciting from the Bible.

He first got a foot on the political ladder — and detractors claim, access to funds — in 1992. After completing studies in botany, he headed the YK’92 youth movement tasked with drumming up support for the autocratic then-president Daniel arap Moi, also a Kalenjin.

In 1997, when he tried to launch his parliamentary career by contesting a seat on his home turf of Eldoret North, Moi told him he was a disrespectful son of a pauper.

Undeterred, Ruto went on to clinch the seat, which he retained in subsequent elections.

His detractors say he siphoned money from the YK’92 project and used it to go into business, and allegations of corruption and land grabs still hang over him.

But he has long dismissed such claims, once telling local media: “I can account for every coin that I have.”

Source:  AFP