William Ruto is 'confident' he will win the Kenyan presidential elections

Kenya’s outgoing Deputy President William Ruto said he is confident in winning the elections and believes the east African state is a "democratic nation" and that the election will not be tampered with.

"I know there are notions that oh you see if you put the current President and the current leader of the opposition on one side it becomes unassailable. I tell you nothing could be further from the truth the people of Kenya can cut through that kind of network and still make an informed decision. And I am very confident that I will win this election," said Ruto.

In the last presidential election in 2017, an appeal by Odinga, who believed his victory had been stolen amid high tensions, led to the election being annulled by the Supreme Court - a first in Africa - and then rescheduled.

But to Ruto, this will not be the case this time around.

"Challenges always come when people start to run narratives, the election was stolen, blablabla, this this this, and unfortunately for my competitor this time around he has nobody to blame because the so call system and the deep state and everything are on his side. So I think we will have a peaceful election," said Ruto.

Asked how he would react if he lost, Mr. Ruto, who was once prosecuted by the international criminal court for his role in the 2007-2008 violence, said that "the election will be peaceful.

"And if you look at this contest, there are people from different ethnicities on either side. So we have largely managed to pull away from the usual competition around ethnicities and that kind of things to a space where," said Ruto.

Kenyan elections have been marked on several occasions by violence, particularly ethnic violence, as in 2007-2008 (more than 1,100 dead, hundreds of thousands displaced).