William Ruto had served as deputy under outgoing Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto has won the presidential election. He narrowly beat his rival, Raila Odinga, taking 50.49 per cent of the vote. Protests erupted in his defeated rival's strongholds after the results.
Here are five facts about the Kenyan President-elect:
- Ruto is one of Kenya's wealthiest men but people remember him as a barefoot schoolboy who used to sell chickens at a roadside stall. Even then, he possessed a fierce intelligence, according to locals. Esther Cherobon, who studied with Ruto in school in Sambut village, told news agency Reuters that Ruto was always the boy with the highest marks.
- Ruto had served as deputy under outgoing Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta since 2013, supporting him in two elections with a promise that he would have the backing of his boss in this year's vote. But Kenyatta backed Odinga for the top job and they fell out after the 2017 election.
- A teetotal father of six who describes himself as a born-again Christian, Ruto seldom lets a speech go by without thanking or praising God or reciting from the Bible. Ruto insiders describe him as a gifted orator with a fierce work ethic.
- He first got a foot on the political ladder in 1992. In 1997, when he tried to launch his parliamentary career by contesting a seat on his home turf of Eldoret North, then-President Daniel Moi told him he was a disrespectful son of a pauper. Undeterred, Ruto went on to clinch the seat, which he retained in subsequent elections.
- Ruto had supported Odinga during hotly disputed elections in 2007, when 1,200 people were killed after political violence sparked ethnic cleansing. Both he and Kenyatta faced charges at the International Criminal Court over the violence, in a cases that later collapsed.
