Kenyan President Kenyatta Urges Calm on Election Day

Kenyans began lining up hours before dawn Tuesday to cast their ballots in hotly contested nationwide polls.

“We’ve been crying for change and if I don’t wake up, come out and vote, I will not bring the change that people want,” said 31-year-old Mildred Malubi who waited in line for three and a half hours to vote in Kangemi slum, in Nairobi.

Polling booths opened before dawn Tuesday morning for the East African nation’s 20 million eligible voters to choose between Kenyatta and his longtime rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, in one of the most closely watched races on the African continent. The race is projected to be tight.

Kenya’s electoral commission is using biometric voter identification and electronic vote transmission systems to conduct the elections. The election is seen as a key test for the commission after voting technology failed during the last polls in 2013, sparking allegations of vote rigging.

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has urged his country’s voters to cast their ballots in peace and make Kenya’s founding fathers proud of them.

“Ask every single eligible citizen to turn out tomorrow in great numbers to do that which our democracy entities you to do — vote for the candidate of your choice,” Kenyatta said in an election-eve broadcast Monday.

He urged citizens to go home after they vote, shake their neighbor’s hand, have something to eat and wait for the election results together.