2007 Elections

On 26 January 2007, President Kibaki declared his intention of running for re-election in the 2007 presidential election. On 16 September 2007, Kibaki announced that he would stand as the candidate of a new alliance incorporating all the parties who supported his re-election, called the Party of National Unity. The parties in his alliance included the much diminished former ruling KANU, DP, Narc-Kenya, Ford-Kenya, Ford People, and Shirikisho.
Kibaki's main opponent,Raila Odinga, had used the referendum victory to launch the ODM, which nominated him as its presidential Candidate for the 2007 elections.
On 30 September 2007, a robust and much healthier President Kibaki launched his presidential campaign at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi.. Kalonzo Musyokathen broke away from Raila's ODM to mount his own fringe bid for the presidency,thus narrowing down the contest between the main candidates, Kibaki, the incumbent, and Odinga. Opinion polls up to election day showed Kibaki behind Raila Odinga  nationally, but closing. On regional analysis, the polls showed him behind Raila in all regions of the country except Central Province, Embu and Meru,where he was projected to take most of the votes, and behind Kalonzo Musyoka in Kalonzo's native Ukambani. It was thus projected to be a close election between Kibaki and Raila.
The election was held on 27 December 2007. Three days later, after a protracted count which saw presidential results in Kibaki's Central Kenya come in last, allegedly inflated,in a cloud of suspicion and rising tensions, amid vehement protests by Raila's ODM,overnight re-tallying of results and chaotic scenes, all beamed live on TV, at the national tallying center at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi,riot police eventually sealed off the tallying Center ahead of the result announcement, evicted party agents, observers and the media, and moved the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu,to another room where Kivuitu went on to declare Kibaki the winner by 4,584,721 votes to Odinga's 4,352,993, placing Kibaki ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes in the hotly contested election with  Kalonzo Musyoka a distant third.

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