- Title: Kerry says Kenya election candidates with complaint 'must follow process'
- Date: 10th August 2017
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (AUGUST 10, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE AND CO-LEADER OF INTERNATIONAL OBSERVER MISSION FOR KENYA ELECTIONS, JOHN KERRY WITH OTHER CO-LEADER, FORMER SENEGALESE PRIME MINISTER, AMINATA TOURE ARRIVING FOR PRESS BRIEFING PHOTOGRAPHER (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO LEADER OF THE CARTER CENTER'S OBSERVATION MISSION, FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY SAYING: "We met yesterday with Mr. Odinga and some of his team and we listened very carefully to his concerns that he expressed and were expressed publicly yesterday and they deserve to be taken seriously. Any candidate's legitimate evidence of something that has happened needs to be judged but it needs to be judged through the appropriate process. You can't have members of your party or others engaging in a kind of threat unveiled to the public when you say, 'go to work for now, but we may need you, call to action at some point in time,' that is not the way to proceed forward here. If there is a legitimate complaint then there is a process, as I said very clearly, for the airing of that complaint and the appropriate democratic evaluation of whether or not that complaint is legitimate. Now, let us assume for a moment that it is, that there was someone who somehow got in, if they did or didn't... the question is, were they able to change any results? Were they able to change anything? And that is measurable." GUESTS AT NEWS BRIEFING VARIOUS OF KERRY AND TOURE AT NEWS BRIEFING (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO LEADER OF THE CARTER CENTER'S OBSERVATION MISSION, FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY SAYING: "I know what it is like to lose an election. I lost by one state the presidency of the United States, and I had a lot of reasons to complain about what happened in Ohio or other states but you have got to get over it and move on and I am not saying one candidate or the other. Mr. Kenyatta winds up losing in this race, he has to make a decision to cede power and he has to do what is appropriate. If Mr. Odinga... who knows? Let us see where the count comes out." NEWS CONFERENCE
- Embargoed: 24th August 2017 13:32
- Keywords: Kenya Kenyan elections John Kerry observers hacking
- Location: NAIROBI, KENYA
- City: NAIROBI, KENYA
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA0016TKQGXZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:International observers on Thursday (August 10) praised the handling of Kenya's presidential election, with the European Union mission saying it had seen no sign of manipulation despite opposition complaints and scattered protests.
John Kerry, the former U.S. Secretary of State heading the Carter Center observer mission, said the election system, which is ultimately based on the original paper ballots cast, remained solid and all sides should wait for electronic tallies to be double-checked against hard copies.
"I know what it is like to lose an election," Kerry told a news conference in Nairobi, "I lost by one state the presidency of the United States, and I had a lot of reasons to complain about what happened in Ohio or other states but you have got to get over it and move on."
President Uhuru Kenyatta has taken a commanding lead but his rival, veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, has rejected provisional electronic results, saying figures released so far are "fictitious" and that election systems had been hacked. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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