Kenya's losing presidential candidate Raila Odinga said on Tuesday his coalition totally rejected the election results that saw Deputy President William Ruto win the presidential vote and vowed to pursue legal means to challenge the decision, he said in a statement on Tuesday.
The veteran opposition leader, who lost his fifth bid for the presidency, urged his supporters to maintain peace and not take the law into their own hands at a media briefing in the capital.
Four of the seven election commissioners said they stood by their decision a day earlier to disown figures announced by electoral commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati.
According to international media, on Monday, Odinga's supporters battled police and burned tyres in the western city of Kisumu and the capital Nairobi's huge Kibera slum, but calm had returned to the streets by Tuesday morning, said Reuters.
Odinga accused the head of the Kenya electoral body of "blatant disregard of the constitution".
"We totally, without reservation, reject the presidential election results," he said.
Making his remarks in front of supporters in the capital, Nairobi, he said that there was "neither a legally elected winner nor a president-elect", he said in his address to the media.
Odinga rejected as a "travesty" the result of the 9 August presidential election, he was declared to have lost to Deputy President William Ruto and warned on Tuesday of a long legal crisis facing Kenya's democracy, citing a Reuters report.
Kenya celebrates Ruto victory
On the day after the results, Observers claim that Ruto’s victory marked a break with tradition in that he fought the campaign along economic terms and not ethnic lines.
“I don’t think it (violence) will spread because by now, we have learned through the experience we had in 2007. It was a very bad experience, so people have learned, especially in this region of the Rift Valley because the place that was most affected during that time was in Rift Valley”, said Eldoret resident, Judy Kosgei, citing a report by Maravi Post.
William Ruto’s victory brought happiness to many in the town.
Another Eldoret resident, Hamida Nyawira, could hardly contain her excitement.