NAIROBI, Kenya — As effects poured in from Kenya’s cliffhanger presidential election, buyers at a cafe in Eldoret, 150 miles north of Nairobi, the capital, stared up at six tv displays on Thursday evening that have been appearing the competing tallies by means of Kenyan information media shops.

With 90 % of the votes tallied, the 2 major contenders, William Ruto and Raila Odinga, have been only some thousand votes aside. Each had about 49 % of the vote.

“People are so worrying,” mentioned Kennedy Orangi, a health center nurse brandishing two mobile phones, “that they can’t even suppose immediately.”

Then the tallies flooring to a halt.

Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, who have been glued to their televisions, radios and telephones since Tuesday’s vote, have been in the dead of night about the newest result of a neck-and-neck presidential race that has gripped the rustic, and is being scrutinized some distance past.

On Friday, Kenyan information organizations gave quite a lot of explanations for preventing their counts, together with fears of hacking and a want to “synchronize” their effects.

But to many Kenyans, it appeared they were given chilly ft and shied clear of having to claim the winner in a high-stakes political fight that pits Mr. Ruto, the rustic’s vp, in opposition to Mr. Odinga, a political veteran making his 5th run for the presidency.

Now, electorate must continue their nail-biting wait. Officials say it’ll most probably be Sunday, on the earliest, ahead of the election fee can claim an reliable winner within the race — and to grasp whether or not both candidate can cross the 50 % threshold had to steer clear of a runoff.

The stakes in this election are high for Kenya, an East African powerhouse with a contemporary historical past of turbulent elections. But it additionally reverberates past, as a litmus check for democracy at a time when authoritarianism is advancing throughout Africa, and the globe.

“Kenya is an anchor for steadiness, safety and democracy — now not simply within the area, or in this continent, however around the globe,” the embassies of the United States and 13 different Western international locations mentioned in a observation at the eve of the election.

Seared by means of grievance of its failings in earlier votes, the nationwide election fee went to nice lengths to make this an exemplary election.

With the cheap of over $370 million, some of the highest per voter costs in the world, the fee sourced published paper ballots from Europe that had extra security measures than Kenya’s foreign money notes. It deployed biometric era to spot electorate by means of their fingerprints and photographs.

The election fee “has finished an overly skilled process,” mentioned Johnnie Carson, a former U.S. ambassador to Kenya who’s serving as an election observer. The biometric device “labored higher than many of us expected and has proved to be an invaluable style to construct on.”

The fee started posting on-line effects from over 46,000 polling stations inside hours of the polls ultimate on Tuesday, a transfer of radical transparency meant to push back fears of doable vote rigging.

But within the counting, issues haven’t long gone completely to plot.

The election fee’s resolution to submit the consequences on-line — permitting the scoop media to do the primary, unofficial tally of the consequences — has proved to be problematic. Media organizations tallied in several sequences, resulting in conflicting reviews of who used to be forward.

That drew grievance from world and native observers just like the Kenya Human Rights Commission, which mentioned that divergent tallies have been causing “confusion, anxiousness, concern, unrest.”

As the numbers rolled in, it become transparent the race between Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga used to be far tighter than most Kenyans anticipated. Heading into the election on Tuesday, a number of polls confirmed Mr. Odinga with a at ease lead.

After the election, the fee’s reliable depend used to be sluggish, as a result of ballot employees needed to shipping paper consequence sheets from the 46,229 polling websites to the nationwide counting heart in Nairobi. Then fee employees had to ensure the papers in opposition to the net database of pictures of the similar sheets.

Those delays intended that by means of Thursday evening it used to be changing into transparent that the primary indication of a winner would most probably come from the scoop media — now not the election fee — a politically delicate transfer in a rustic the place the media will also be subject to heavy-handed government interference.

Felix Odhiambo Owuor, government director of the Electoral Law and Governance Institute for Africa, a nonprofit that helped draft tips for the scoop media’s function within the election, mentioned in an interview the media teams pulled out to steer clear of a difficult state of affairs.

“I believe they only made up our minds it used to be higher to attend” for Kenya’s electoral fee “to catch up,” he mentioned.

Others pointed to direct govt power to finish the depend. Three newshounds with the Nation Media Group, talking at the situation of anonymity to talk about delicate inner issues, mentioned govt officers had careworn their editors to forestall the tallying as a result of, they have been informed, it used to be developing confusion a few of the public.

On Friday, in an article in the Nation newspaper, Mutuma Mathiu, editor in leader of the Nation Media Group, described what a hard job the tallying had turn out to be.

“We aren’t simply tallying figures. We also are looking to stay protected, and open, now not bankrupt ourselves, keep out of the clutches of affect teams and supply excellent, blank information,” he wrote.

In a statement, David Omwoyo, the pinnacle of the federal government’s Media Council of Kenya mentioned that “No one has requested any individual to forestall the tallying and projection of the consequences.”

The simplest unofficial tallies have been being performed by means of international information organizations — the BBC and a joint effort by means of Reuters and Google. But they have been according to a suite of constituency effects that, as of middle of the night on Friday, used to be simplest 75 % whole.

That may go away Kenyans looking ahead to the overall effects, to determine who’s their subsequent president, or if the rustic is headed for a runoff and should repeat the entire worried workout one month from now.

Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi, and Abdi Latif Dahir reported from Eldoret, Kenya.