1961 Kenyan general election

General elections were held in Kenya in February 1961. The result was a victory for the Kenya African National Union, which won 19 of the 53 elected seats.

Electoral system

Twenty seats were reserved for minority communities; ten for whites, eight for Indians and two for Arabs. There were also twelve appointees.[1] Primary elections were held for the reserved seats by members of the respective communities, and candidates receiving at least 25% of the vote advanced to the main elections.[2]

Of the 1,411,117 registered voters, 29,879 (2.18%) were Indian, 19,332 (1.37%) white and 5,472 (0.38%) Arabs.[3]

Results

Nine constituencies (with a total of 353,251 registered voters) were uncontested, reducing the number of actual voters to 1,057,866.[3]

Party Votes % Seats
Kenya African National Union590,66167.519
Kenya African Democratic Union143,07916.311
Baluhya Political Union28,8173.31
New Kenya Party28,2843.24
Kenya Indian Congress10,4881.23
Kenya Coalition8,8911.03
Kenya Freedom Party5,2630.62
Kenya National Congress4,5610.50
Shungwaya Freedom Party3,7480.41
Coast People's Party1,6930.20
Tana River Pokomo Union6990.10
African independents13,9171.61
Arab independents5,7120.62
Asian Hindu independents4,6480.50
Asian Muslim independents11,8801.33
European independents12,7681.43
Appointed members12
Invalid/blank votes9,678
Total884,78710065
Registered voters/turnout1,057,86683.6
Source: Sternberger et al

References

  1. Elections in Kenya African Election Database
  2. Robert M. Maxon & Thomas P. Ofcansky (2014) Historical Dictionary of Kenya, Rowman & Littlefield, p202
  3. Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen & Klaus Landfried (1978) Die Wahl der Parlamente: Band II: Afrika, Erster Halbband, p972
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.