Kenya\u2019s veteran politician Raila Odinga on Tuesday vowed to pursue \u201call constitutional and legal options\u201d after rejecting the outcome of last week\u2019s election that handed the presidency to his rival William Ruto.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not want to fully address our strategies going forward but\u2026 we will be pursuing all constitutional and legal options available to us,\u201d he told reporters a day after the results were announced, without specifying if he would issue a court case.<\/span><\/p>\n Odinga, who described the outcome of the August 9 poll as \u201ca travesty\u201d at Tuesday\u2019s press conference, has previously claimed to have been cheated of victory in the 2007, 2013 and 2017 presidential elections.<\/span><\/p>\n Last week\u2019s closely fought race saw Odinga lose to Ruto by a narrow margin of around 230,000 votes, sparking protests by his supporters in some areas as well as triggering a split within the electoral body overseeing the poll.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat we saw yesterday (Monday) was a travesty and a blatant disregard of the constitution of Kenya,\u201d the 77-year-old former prime minister said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe totally and without reservations reject the presidential results.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The poll\u2019s aftermath is being keenly watched as a test of democratic maturity in the East African powerhouse where previous elections have been tarnished by claims of rigging and bloodshed.<\/span><\/p>\n On the campaign trail, both frontrunners pledged to deal with any disputes in court rather than on the streets.<\/span><\/p>\n Violent protests nevertheless erupted in Odinga\u2019s strongholds in Nairobi slums and the lakeside city of Kisumu on Monday evening, although the situation was calm Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n Odinga on Tuesday commended his supporters \u201cfor remaining calm and keeping the peace\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLet no one take the law into their own hands,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kenya\u2019s veteran politician Raila Odinga on Tuesday vowed to pursue \u201call constitutional and legal options\u201d after rejecting the outcome of last week\u2019s election that handed the presidency to his rival William Ruto. \u201cI do not want to fully address our strategies going forward but\u2026 we will be pursuing all constitutional and legal options available to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5658,5659,5660,5638],"class_list":["post-9968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-kenya-poll","tag-legal-options","tag-raila-odinga","tag-william-ruto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9970,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9968\/revisions\/9970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}