KENYA: Opposition claims victory in Kenyan polls, as violence continues over fraud claims

Record ID: 360892

  • Title: KENYA: Opposition claims victory in Kenyan polls, as violence continues over fraud claims
  • Date: 29th December 2007
  • Summary: MAN LYING ON THE GROUND BLEEDING
  • Embargoed: 13th January 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA36SFYVZ8MTKRBLFT3MP1L90X3
  • Story Text: The opposition claims victory in the Kenyan polls, as results continue to come in. Protesters clash with police, and residents in Kisumu (the opposition presidential candidate's stronghold) continue a looting spree, as anxiety grows over delayed poll results and claims of rigging and victory by the opposition.
    Kenya's opposition led the presidential election count on Saturday (December 29), but both sides claimed victory and rows over rigging ignited ethnic violence across the east African nation.
    The Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) gave opposition candidate Raila Odinga 3.73 million votes or 49 percent on its count from 159 of 210 constituencies. Incumbent president Mwai Kibaki had 45 percent.
    Odinga had led early tallies, but as Kibaki began to narrow the gap overnight the opposition said it feared ballot fraud.
    The results from Kenya's Thursday polls are being announced at an ongoing media briefing in Nairobi.

    "So far those are the results that we have received, the total is 7,532,264. Its slightly more than half of the registered voters," said ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu.
    Kenya's opposition claimed victory after the official figures gave their candidate a four percentage point lead over President Mwai Kibaki on three-quarters of the count.
    Delays announcing the results ignited deep ethnic tensions in east Africa's biggest economy, as youths wielding machetes fought, looted and burned homes in opposition strongholds.

    "The results are as follows; honourable Raila Amolo Odinga 4,215,437 votes. Honourable Mwai Kibaki 3,748,261. Honourable Kalonzo Musyoka 630,849. Honourable Raila Amolo Odinga is therefore the winner and the fourth President of the Republic of Kenya. In view of the growing anxiety and restlessness in the country over the extended delay in releasing the presidential results by ECK, we now call upon the outgoing president, Mwai Kibaki to acknowledge and respect the will of the Kenyan people and concede defeat," Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) deputy leader Musalia Mudavadi told reporters, citing his party's own tally.
    Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU), hoping to land their man a second five-year term, scoffed at the claims and said it would wait for the ECK, as the commision's chairman Samuel Kivuitu urged restraint by ODM.
    Violence erupted in major towns nation-wide from early morning on Saturday, in some areas between Luo supporters of Odinga and members of Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group, which have a long history of rivalry in Kenya's four decades of independence.
    In Nairobi's Kibera shantytown, a hotbed of Odinga support, locals said two people were killed in skirmishes and police deployed as rival ethnic gangs faced off.
    Residents said trouble began in the sprawling slum -- one of Africa's biggest -- before dawn. Shots were fired, and numerous shacks torched.
    Armed police stood between two gangs, one Luo, the other Kikuyu, who were brandishing knives and clubs.
    In western Kisumu city, in the Nyanza homeland of opposition challenger Raila Odinga, hundreds of angry youths took to the streets, lighting fires, ransacking shops and blocking roads.
    Local residents said one person died.
    Witnesses said looters in Kisumu were targeting shops belonging to members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
    In Nairobi, streets were near-deserted in the city centre as business owners pulled down shutters on their stores. Curious onlookers stood by as truckloads of military police poured in to patrol.
    If Odinga wins, he would realise a long-held ambition to rule Kenya -- a dream that eluded his late father, nationalist hero Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who became vice-president.
    The ECK forecast record turnout figures for what became Kenya's tightest race since British colonial rule ended in 1963.
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