- Title: KENYA: KENYA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ENTERS FINAL PHASE
- Date: 24th December 1997
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (DECEMBER 26, 1997) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS BALLOT PAPERS, PRINTED IN ENGLAND, ARRIVING ON TRUCKS AT CENRAL WAREHOUSE PRIOR TO DISTRIBUTION TO POLLING STATIONS ON SUNDAY (4 SHOTS) 0.18 2. SLV/TRACK BALLOT PAPERS UNLOADED INTO WAREHOUSE BY FORKLIFT TRUCKS (2 SHOTS) 0.44 3. SCU KENYAN ELECTION COMMISSION
- Embargoed: 8th January 1998 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NAIROBI AND WOTE, KENYA
- City:
- Country: Kenya
- Reuters ID: LVAB8L27ODH7KBN0CAEL8IRJIK4S
- Story Text: INTRO: Kenya's presidential election campaign has entered its final phase, with independent monitoring groups warning that incidents of violence, corruption and bias by civil servants could undermine the fairness of Monday's ballot.
At the Kenyan Election Commission warehouse in the capital Nairobi workers unloaded the final consignment of ballot papers on Thursday (December 26), prior to their distribution to polling stations.
The presidential and parliamentary contest pits President Daniel arap Moi and his ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) against a host of opposition parties divided along personal and tribal lines.
Official corruption and the crumbling state of the former British colony's infrastructure, are the two main campaign issues.
Western aid donors and the International Monetary Fund, long tired of seeing much of their financial help wasted due to corruption, have made further financial aid dependent on the elections being fair and transparent.
Monitors from the Commonwealth, church groups and 20 foreign embassies say they will deploy in 13,500 polling stations. Their task has been complicated by heavy rains which have made many already poor roads practically unnavigable.
Kenyan Election Commission official J.B. Tumwa said that his team would do everything possible, including using helicopters, to ensure even the most remote polling stations had the necessary material to conduct the elections.
Ballot boxes have already been distributed to the constituencies and the ballot papers, which have been especially printed in the United Kingdom, will be distributed over the weekend, Tumwa said.
Campaigning has become increasingly violent ahead of the vote, with opposition parties blaming gangs of KANU activists of bribing and press-ganging residents into attending rallies.
Moi took his campaign to the Eastern Region town of Wote on Wednesday, where the rally, in what many would regard as a KANU stronghold, passed off peacefully.
But on Friday, a rally in South Nyanza district on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya turned violent when supporters of Moi's KANU party clashed with opponents after the President had left.
Six people were hurt in the fighting in the district which is regarded as a stronghold of opposition candidate Raila Odingo, one of 14 candidates opposing Moi in the elections.
Moi, in power since 1978, and with firm control over the country's administration and police, is expected to win Kenya's second multi-party election. The 1992 elections were marred by violence in which hundreds died and tens of thousands displaced.
His main challengers are former vice-president Mwai Kibaki Odinga, Kenya's first credible female presidential candidate Charity Ngilu and Michael Wamalwa Kijana. (RL/PC)
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