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Kibaki shatters Odinga`s dream
2007-12-31 09:08:20
By Nairobi
President Mwai Kibaki has beaten opposition leader Raila Odinga by a narrow margin to win re-election in Kenya`s closest ever vote, the head of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) said yesterday.
``The commission therefore declares Honourable Mwai Kibaki as the winner,`` ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu told a small group of reporters at the election tally centre.
Kivuitu, whose attempt to make the announcement in public was halted by scuffles and shouting minutes earlier, said Kibaki had 4,584,721 votes compared to 4,352,993 for Odinga.
Odinga`s opposition party has called the count a fraud.
President Mwai Kibaki was to be sworn in immediately after winning re-election for a second five-year term in disputed polls, his spokesman said.
``The inauguration is about to happen right now in State House,`` spokesman Isaiah Kabira said, summoning media.
Earlier, scuffles and heckling broke out at Kenya``s election results centre, forcing police to escort the nation’s poll chief to safety moments after he began reading vote tallies in a cliff-hanger vote.
Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) head Samuel Kivuitu had just begun reading constituency reports in front of several hundred journalists and party agents, plus millions of Kenyans watching live on television, when chaos erupted.
One man approached the podium yelling ``Justice!`` and ``This is not a police state``. Opposition supporters also yelled at Kivuitu before paramilitary police swept into the packed hall.
Opposition leaders including presidential candidate Raila Odinga — who had hoped to unseat President Mwai Kibaki — then took the microphone.
``The doctoring of results has gone on right here,`` he
said, giving a list of detailed complaints of alleged rigging.
``Kibaki has flooded this commission with his cronies and they are putting pressure on the chairman of the commission to announce fraudulent results.``
It was a second day of chaos at the ECK centre, where a day earlier Odinga allies heckled Kivuitu as he tried to read out figures giving Kibaki a lead of some 120,000 votes.
An earlier official tally gave Odinga a 38,000 vote lead on a count of 180 of Kenya`s 210 constituencies.
Odinga has called for Kibaki to concede defeat.
But Kibaki`s Party of National Unity (PNU) laughed that off as Kenyans waited anxiously for final results.
Odinga had said ODM did not want “to plunge this country into chaos``, and also demanded a partial recount of Thursday`s presidential votes in the presence of observers and media.
Kibaki`s party called Odinga`s victory claim a `crime` against democracy, said it was on course for a win, and accused the opposition of `massive rigging` in its west Kenya heartland.
Delays announcing official results have triggered furious protests and ethnic clashes across the east African nation.
In the latest trouble, thick smoke billowing from torched homes in a Nairobi slum could be seen across the capital.
Police reinforcements in riot gear were deployed in large numbers as many Kenyans feared worse violence was still to come.
The few supermarkets and food shops that opened were packed with nervous customers.
Shelves of meat, milk, beer, bottled water and other provisions emptied fast.
Business leaders said this weekend’s tribal clashes were costing more than $30 million a day in lost taxes — not to mention looting damage — and threatened investment in Kenya.
The country normally enjoys a reputation as a haven of relative calm in a volatile region of Africa.
Odinga said Kibaki’s administration had ``lost all legitimacy and cannot govern,`` and urged Kibaki to ``acknowledge and respect the will of the people of Kenya and honourably concede defeat``.
PNU said its tally showed it won, and a recount would prove it. ``We would still win, by a bigger margin,`` a spokesman said.
Kibaki`s party told Odinga to stop inciting Kenyans to trouble and ``intimidating`` electoral authorities which it said he had treated with ``total contempt``.
Unrest simmered, although at a lower level than on Saturday when widespread ethnic riots swept across Kenya.
In Kisumu yesterday, two people died in violence and police fired in the air to disperse youths gathering in the western opposition city.
Witnesses said police also shot dead another two people in Migori, in the same western province as Kisumu.
``If Kibaki is declared the winner, then all hell will break loose,`` said taxi driver John Ojuang.
Speculation among foreign diplomats and Kenyan media was rife that Kibaki might opt to be sworn in as early as yesterday afternoon, if he won — but State House denied that.
``We are in very little doubt there has been rigging,`` said one election observer, asking not to be named.
``If Kibaki wins, they will want to move quickly ... to deal with any violence.``
Chief EU observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told Reuters there was a ``massive question mark`` over the tally of votes.
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