Kenya: Tally Halted Amid Protests

Posted to the web 30 December 2007
Nation Team
Nairobi

Chaos and angry protests on Saturday halted the announcement of results from Thursday's General Election with only 38,000 votes separating the two leading presidential candidates.

The delay in the release of the results caused tension and anxiety throughout the country, with one death, various injuries and looting reported.

Bickering between the agents of various presidential candidates, especially ODM and PNU, and confrontations with Electoral Commission of Kenya chairman Samuel Kivuitu, led to the suspension of announcement of results late last evening, according to commission spokesperson Jack Tumwa.

As at 2.30pm, ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga had 3,880,053 votes against President Kibaki's 3,842,051, according to official figures released by Electoral Commission of Kenya Chairman Samuel Kivuitu.

The chairman did not give the tally for other presidential candidates, including ODM-K's Kalonzo Musyoka, at that briefing.

After a meeting of ECK commissioners, Mr Tumwa announced suspension of the entire exercise to allow a scrutiny of results in all the 210 parliamentary constituencies.

Mr Tumwa said all the 22 commissioners including the chairman had agreed on the suspension.

The centre of disagreements was in constituencies in Nairobi, Eastern and parts of Central provinces where President Kibaki was scoring highly against ODM's Raila Odinga in the presidential race.

ODM has also scored high turnout in its strongholds, with the turnout for Ndhiwa reported as 92.8 per cent, for example.

With results coming in to the national tallying centre at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi overnight and early Saturday morning, the gap between President Kibaki and Mr Odinga had closed to only 38,000 from a high of one million on Friday.

At first, ODM chairman Henry Kosgey protested against any other commissioner apart from Mr Kivuitu announcing presidential results.

Then when Mr Kivuitu arrived to read the results, ODM's Najib Balala, Charity Ngilu, Retired Justice Richard Kwach, Joseph Nyagah, William Ruto, James Orengo and Musa Sirma raised numerous complaints about results coming from parts of Eastern Province.

ODM complained about what they termed as the slow progress of releasing results in President Kibaki's strongholds.

On the PNU side, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua, assistant minister Danson Mungatana and presidential agent George Nyamweya raised objections to some results from Nyanza province.

ODM Kenya's Mutula Kilonzo asked ECK to stick to the law and announce election results without allowing anyone to distract the process with "sideshows".

Mr Kivuitu then announced that he would stop the exercise for commissioners to hold private consultations before proceeding with the exercise.


As the gap between the candidates started narrowing with President Kibaki making gains against Mr Odinga, violence erupted in Nairobi, Busia, Kisumu, Eldoret, Kericho, Kakamega and Bungoma.

But calm was restored in most of affected areas early in the afternoon.

Mr Kivuitu, ODM, a grouping of major faith groups and representatives of the European Union election observers appealed for peace and respect for the rule of law.