On Tuesday, 22.1 million Kenyan voters will have to choose the new figure at the head of their country.

A hard-fought election with an uncertain outcome between outgoing Vice-President William Ruto and Raila Odinga, a veteran of the opposition now supported by the ruling party.

But voters will also have to elect their parliamentarians, governors and some 1,500 local elected officials in the process: six votes in total in one day.

Suddenly, this Monday, the country was in the preparations.

The last pallets of ballot papers and other plastic crates loaded with election materials have been unloaded at the 46,229 polling stations which will open from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow (0300-1400 GMT).

This election represents high stakes for the economic locomotive of East Africa, while the cost of living has soared against the backdrop of the pandemic and the effects of the war in Ukraine.

A close duel between Ruto and Odinga

William Ruto, 55, is the current vice-president of the country since the election of Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013. Ruto had been promised by the latter to be the candidate of the presidential Jubilee party in 2022.

But the unexpected rapprochement in 2018 between Kenyatta and Odinga made him a challenger, campaigning ever since.

Raila Odinga, 77, is running for president for the fifth time.

In recent months, the electoral dispute has raged at cross-country meetings, from isolated towns to slums in this country where inequalities are glaring and the minimum wage is 15,120 shillings (124 euros).

In the Republic of Kenya and its 46 tribes, ethnicity is a key factor in voting booths.

Risks of violence

Ten years ago, the post-electoral crisis of 2007-2008 caused more than 1,100 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people displaced during ethnic clashes.

The fear of violence still hovers.

Hundreds of international and civil society observers will be deployed on Tuesday, notably by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad).

In this context, calls for calm have multiplied.

On Sunday, US Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman said Tuesday's poll was "an opportunity for Kenyans to show the world the strength of Kenyan democracy by holding free, fair and peaceful elections."

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