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. 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.

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

Results

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

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Kenya African National Union	590,661	67.50	19
	Kenya African Democratic Union	143,079	16.35	11
	Baluhya Political Union	28,817	3.29	1
	New Kenya Party	28,284	3.23	4
	Kenya Indian Congress	10,488	1.20	3
	Kenya Coalition	8,891	1.02	3
	Kenya Freedom Party	5,263	0.60	2
	Kenya National Congress	4,561	0.52	0
	Shungwaya Freedom Party	3,748	0.43	1
	Coast People's Party	1,693	0.19	0
	Tana River Pokomo Union	699	0.08	0
	African independents	13,917	1.59	1
	Arab independents	5,712	0.65	2
	Asian Hindu independents	4,648	0.53	0
	Asian Muslim independents	11,880	1.36	3
	European independents	12,768	1.46	3
Appointed members				12
Total		875,109	100.00	65
Valid votes		875,109	98.91
Invalid/blank votes		9,678	1.09
Total votes		884,787	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,057,866	83.64
Source: Sternberger et al.