• Kenyans are still waiting for final results five days after polls.
• Raila Odinga had 52.54 percent of the vote against William Ruto’s 46.76 percent, preliminary results show.
• Election commission appeals for nation to be patient as vote tallying moves slowly.

Kenya’s one-time opposition leader Raila Odinga is marginally ahead of incumbent Deputy President William Ruto in the presidential election, according to preliminary results released Saturday.

Odinga had 52.54 percent of the vote against Ruto’s 46.76 percent, according to numbers released in the early afternoon by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission based on results from around 30 percent of voting locations.

Kenyans are still waiting for final results five days after the country, considered one of the most dynamic democracies in Africa, went to the polls on Tuesday.

Odinga, 77, is making his fifth stab at the top job with the support of his longtime foe, the outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta who has already served two terms and cannot run again.

Ruto, 55, has been deputy president for almost a decade but was left out in the cold after a pact between Odinga and Kenyatta in 2018 that stunned the nation.

The election commission on Friday acknowledged that the vote tallying was moving too slowly after appealing for the nation to be patient.

It also denied that its results portal had been compromised, insisting its systems were secure.

Kenyans had been left confused when television stations which have been providing rolling coverage of the election, suddenly stopped broadcasting provisional results on Thursday.

The election is being seen as a test of the stability of the East African powerhouse, which has seen past votes marred by rigging and deadly violence.

Despite an intense campaign and disinformation, polling day went off relatively calmly, with independent monitors reporting that the vote was orderly but not without obstacles.

The winner of Kenya’s presidential election must receive 50 percent plus one vote and at least a quarter of the votes cast in 24 of the country’s 47 counties.

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