WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM:
As vote counting began on Tuesday following Kenya’s chaotic general election, opposition parties accused the government of President Daniel arap Moi of rigging the vote in its favour, while Moi accused the Electoral Commission of rigging the poll in favour of the opposition.
Five people died in political violence related to the election, which was marked by chaos as voting was extended to Tuesday following late starts at many polling stations on Monday. It is not yet clear when results will be available.
A riot broke out on Tuesday in Nakuru, 130km north-west of the capital Nairobi, when a vehicle arrived at a counting center with a ballot box that onlookers considered suspicious. One person was shot and killed and two others were slashed to death with machetes. Two others died in similar violence on Monday.
The National Convention Executive Committee, a broad opposition grouping that has been pushing for political reforms, called the elections “a fantastic farce” and blamed Moi’s government. The group said the commission acted illegally in extending voting and delaying counting.
Moi, meanwhile, complained that the Electoral Commission — whose members he had approved — was trying to cheat him. In a statement on state radio, Moi accused the commission of an “obvious scheme to rig the ongoing general election in favor of the opposition.”
Even if most of Kenya’s nine million registered voters chose opposition candidates, Moi is still likely to win because he faced more than a dozen contenders divided along ethnic lines. Unable to agree on a single challenger, the opposition’s only hope of winning was in forcing a run-off, which might unite the anti-Moi vote. In the 1992 general elections — the first multi-party elections since 1966 — Moi won more than 25% of the vote in five provinces, and 36% nationwide. But monitors said those elections were badly flawed.
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