While John Kerry may not be the U.S. Secretary of State anymore, he is still dedicated to assisting with foreign affairs.
According to CNN, Kerry is now co-leading the Carter Center’s mission of election observers in Kenya, and is working on bringing that country's election to a peaceful close.
After this week's election, incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta’s opponent Raila Odinga claimed that early electronic election results were hacked.
The government's rules state that Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has one week to officially declare the final tally.
Kenyatta is already on track for a win (97 percent of stations reporting, Kenyatta: 54.32 percent ; Odinga's 44.8 percent).
"The process is still underway. But we believe that the election's commission in Kenya has put together a process that will allow each and every vote's integrity to be proven," Kerry said, adding that there were "little aberrations here and there."
Kerry assured all that these “little aberrations” will be looked into, as the IEBC is required by law to verify electronic online reporting with the physical ballot forms.
"If anything was electronically fiddled with, there is a way to go back and absolutely ascertain what happened in the polling station. So by paper ballots, there is a protection of each and every Kenyan's vote," Kerry confirmed.
Opposition leader Odinga’s similar claims about rigging in the 2007 election — where he was defeated by then-president Mwai Kibaki — sparked outrage that led to ethnic violence in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
This time around, Odinga has been active in making sure that this violent history doesn’t repeat itself.
"We do not want to see any violence in Kenya. We know the consequences of what happened in 2008 and we don't want to see a repeat of that anymore," Odinga said."I don't control anybody. What is happening is that people just want to see justice. We also hope that the security forces are not going to use excessive force."
While Tuesday's election resulted in little to no blips, there were some confrontations between protesters and police a day later, which left at least two people dead.
Head of the EU’s election mission Marietje Schaake confirmed Kerry's assessment of the voting, and said she had seen “no signs of centralized or localized manipulation.”
"To date, the IEBC has demonstrated its commitment to transparency in the results process including by putting results forms online," she added.
Possibly alluding to the “little aberrations” that Kerry referenced, chairman of the voting authority Wafula Chebukati noted, "The commission has responded to the claims by [the National Super Alliance]. Preliminary reports show hacking was attempted but did not succeed.”
As the final results deadline approaches, we shall see what transpires with this election!