The 2013 presidential election was the first conducted under the Kenya Constitution 2010, introducing new electoral rules—including the requirement that a winner secure 50-percent-plus-one of votes cast and at least 25 percent in a majority of counties—that fundamentally altered campaign strategy and coalition architecture. The election was dominated by the shadow of the International Criminal Court, as the two leading candidates faced charges for crimes against humanity related to the 2007-2008 Post Election Violence.
Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, who had been on opposing sides of the 2007 violence—Kenyatta associated with the Kikuyu-aligned PNU and Ruto with the Kalenjin-dominated ODM—formed the Jubilee Alliance, a coalition that transformed their shared ICC indictments from a political liability into a rallying cry against perceived Western interference in Kenyan sovereignty. The alliance united the two largest ethnic communities that had clashed in 2007—the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin—in a political marriage of convenience that reshaped Kenya's electoral map for a decade.
Their principal opponent was Raila Odinga of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD), who had served as Prime Minister under the power-sharing government negotiated after the 2008 crisis. Odinga's coalition drew heavily from Luo, Luhya, and Kamba communities, alongside coastal populations. His campaign emphasized constitutional implementation, devolution, and institutional reform, but struggled against the Jubilee Alliance's ethnic arithmetic and the emotive sovereignty narrative surrounding the ICC cases.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission deployed a biometric voter registration and electronic results transmission system for the first time, intended to prevent the rigging and tallying disputes that had triggered 2007's violence. However, the technology experienced significant failures on election day—the electronic voter identification system malfunctioned at numerous polling stations, and the results transmission system collapsed, forcing a reversion to manual tallying that revived suspicions of manipulation.
Kenyatta was declared winner with 50.07 percent of the vote—barely clearing the constitutional threshold—compared to Odinga's 43.31 percent. The margin of approximately 800,000 votes and the razor-thin clearance of the 50-percent requirement prompted Odinga to file a petition before the Supreme Court, the first presidential election petition in Kenya's history. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and the six-judge bench upheld Kenyatta's victory, ruling that the petitioners had failed to prove irregularities sufficient to overturn the result. The decision was controversial—critics argued the court had set an impossibly high evidentiary threshold—but it established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of presidential disputes under the new constitution.
The 2013 election carried profound implications for Kenya's international relations. Western governments, which had signaled that an ICC-indicted president would face diplomatic isolation, were forced to recalibrate as Kenyatta engaged the East African Community, China, and other partners less concerned with the ICC. The African Union rallied behind Kenya, with the AU Assembly calling for ICC cases against sitting heads of state to be deferred—reflecting broader continental frustration with the court's focus on Africa. The ICC cases against both Kenyatta and Ruto eventually collapsed amid witness tampering and intimidation, with charges against Kenyatta withdrawn in 2014 and Ruto's case vacated in 2016.
See Also
- Uhuru Kenyatta Presidency
- William Ruto Presidency
- ICC Cases Kenya
- 2007-2008 Post Election Violence
- Kenya Constitution 2010
- Elections
- Devolution Kenya
Sources
- Cheeseman, Nic, Gabrielle Lynch, and Justin Willis. "Democracy and Its Discontents: Understanding Kenya's 2013 Elections." Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, no. 1 (2014): 2–24.
- Kanyinga, Karuti, and James D. Long. "The Political Economy of Reforms in Kenya: The Post-2007 Election Violence and a New Constitution." African Studies Review 55, no. 1 (2012): 31–51.
- Mueller, Susanne D. "Kenya and the International Criminal Court (ICC): Politics, the Election and the Law." Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, no. 1 (2014): 25–42.
- International Crisis Group. "Kenya's 2013 Elections." Africa Report No. 197 (2013).
- Kramon, Eric, and Daniel N. Posner. "Kenya's New Constitution." Journal of Democracy 22, no. 2 (2011): 89–103.