The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
31 December 2007
President Mwai Kibaki holds the Bible as he is sworn in at State House, Nairobi, yesterday. 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 said yesterday.
President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya was yesterday sworn in for a second term minutes after he was declared to have won the presidential election, part of wider parliamentary elections on December 27.
While previous election were marked by rioting and "ethnic cleansing" at the local level, the focus of contention this time was the presidential election. It has never been as intensely fought out in 44 years of independence.
Amid reports of extensive discrepancies in counting of votes, where large gaps opened between parliamentary results and presidential elections, the poll supervisors declared the president to have won the vote.They brushed aside rigging claims from close associates of opposition leader Raila Odinga, including at least one dissident member of the Electoral Commission of Kenya.
Officials of the president's Party of National Unity strongly rebutted the rigging charges, while polls commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu announced the results under tight security in a small room at around 5:45pm.
He listed the polls outcome as indicating that the president had scooped 4,584,721 votes, followed by Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) with 4,352,993 votes.Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM-Kenya fetched 879,903 votes according to the polls commission chief, and instantly sparked chaos in many areas known to be Odinga sympathisers.
Many could not believe their ears as for all the time that election results were being announced, the ODM candidate consistently led the vote. But the commission later stopped giving results, saying they had not come in, while ODM officials insisted since Friday that all results were being sent to commission headquarters.Announcing the winner, the ECK chairman urged those who were not satisfied by the results to follow legal procedures by filing a petition at the High Court of Kenya.
Earlier the ECK chairman was compelled to suspend the announcement of results, when ODM key leader William Ruto stood up and protested the Commission's figures as Mr Kivuitu went on reading the list of results.
President Kibaki was sworn in shortly after the results were announced, as if the stage had already been set for a swearing in ceremony, less than half an hour after official results were announced. The chief dignitary present was former president Daniel arap Moi.
As Mr Kibaki took the oath of office amidst difficulties of reading the Kiswahili text, ODM leaders from whom the microphones and television cameras had left stranded, continued protesting that the final results were cooked up.
President Kibaki urged the other candidates to accept election results, congratulating distant rival Kalonzo Musyoka ahead of bitter rival Raila Odinga.
He also urged the ODM camp, with a large majority in the new parliament that is now expected to start crossing over to the president's camp, "to stop interfering with the Commission's works."Earlier, in a packed press conference at ECK offices after the Commission suspended announcing the results, ODM talked of credible evidence on how the results have been doctored.
ODM leaders urged a recounting of votes for all 210 constituencies to get credible final results, instead of rushing into declaring a winner, who was already prepared to be sworn in. ECK officials went on and announced the winner of the December 27 polls as the president, and then proceeded to the swearing in ceremony at the State House.
Mr Odinga said he won the polls by a margin of about 500,000 votes and declared that he would fight the results. He has earlier urged the president to stop the dilly dallying with results and "as a contestant, admit that he had lost."
Mr Odinga insisted that "Kenyans have spoken and their voices should be respected." "I want to assure you that nothing can stop the river Nile from reaching the Mediterranean Sea," said Mr Odinga, who has often compared his campaign run with a "tsunami.
"He said the delay or announcing results from various constituencies was purposely done in order to give time for ECK to doctor the figures, after a relentless run of ODM scooping parliamentary seats and maintaining a one-million votes lead by late Friday.
At that time about half the votes had been counted, which means that trends could not be so intensely reversed within the same voting mood across the country.
In one incident, the total number of voters according to voter registration figures was 54,000 but those announced by ECK showed that the PNU candidate had obtained 75,000 votes. Mr Odinga further stated that the final results compiled by the ECK chairman differed with what the returning officers recorded on Form 16, indicating that vote results rigging was at work.
ODM leaders presented an ECK official identified only as Kipkoech, testifying as to how the list of results was being rigged.
"Allow me to tell you the shocking details on how we have been forced to sign the doctored results, but my conscience doesn't allow me to do that," the dissident ECK official affirmed at the press conference.
Shortly after the announcement of the results, chaos erupted in Kisii, Kisumu, as well as in the Nairobi suburbs of Eastland, Kariobangi and Kibera, claiming lives of about 11 people. Angry mobs stormed the streets just after the announcement, in many places across the country.
Thousands of protesters launched angry demonstrations, burning shacks in the capital's Kibera slum. Scuffles and heckling erupted brought the paramilitary police to escort Kivuitu to safety soon after he began reading final results.
Riots convulsed Kibera - a major slum and like other, a solid ODM area - after the announcement and residents said opposition supporters were burning houses and kiosks.
"There's a lot of heat over here. People are out in their thousands," Kibera resident Joshua Odutu said against a backdrop of gunshots, whistles and shouting.Police reinforcements in riot gear were deployed in large numbers as many Kenyans feared worse violence was 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 clashes were costing more than $30 million a day in lost taxes - not to mention looting damage - and threatened foreign investment in Kenya.
The country normally enjoys the reputation as a haven of calm in a volatile region of Africa.One election observer who asked not to be named said they were "in very little doubt" there had been rigging of the final results.
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