Alternative Africa

Top Menu

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

logo

Alternative Africa

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
  • Joe Biden to prioritize legal status for millions of immigrants

  • EU impressed with Museveni victory despite allegations of fraud

  • Guinea president, Alpha Conde becomes first African leader to receive Covid-19 jab

  • Ghanaian Pastor murders daughter over allege witchcraft

  • UK bans deadly Chinese hand sanitiser containing toxic substance

News Now
Home›News Now›Violence, Protests Mar Kenya’s Election Rerun

Violence, Protests Mar Kenya’s Election Rerun

By alternativeafrica
October 26, 2017
636
0
Share:

KISUMU, Kenya, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Kenyan opposition supporters clashed with police and threw up burning barricades in pockets of the country on Thursday, seeking to derail an election rerun likely to return Uhuru Kenyatta as president of East Africa’s economic powerhouse.

In the western city of Kisumu, police used tear gas and fired live rounds over the heads of stone-throwing youths heeding opposition leader Raila Odinga’s call for a voter boycott. Gunfire killed one protester and wounded three, a nurse said. Reuters found no polling stations open there.

Riot police fired tear gas in Kibera and Mathare, two volatile Nairobi slums. Protesters set fires in Kibera early in the morning, and in Mathare a church was firebombed.

Around 50 people have been killed, mostly by security forces, since the original Aug. 8 vote. The Supreme Court annulled Kenyatta’s win in that poll on procedural grounds and ordered fresh elections within 60 days; but Odinga called for a boycott because, he said, the poll would not be fair.

The repeat election is being closely watched across East Africa, which relies on Kenya as a trade and logistics hub, and in the West, which considers Nairobi a bulwark against Islamist militancy in Somalia and civil conflict in South Sudan and Burundi.

While tensions simmered in opposition strongholds, other areas were calm. In the capital, polling stations saw a sprinkling of voters instead of the hours-long queues that waited in August.

The police said there had been isolated incidents of violence in five out of 47 counties, including a man shot dead in Homa Bay County.

Interior minister Fred Matiang’i told Citizen TV that polling stations opened in 90 percent of the country, including Kiambu, where Kenyatta cast his ballot.

“We are requesting them (voters) humbly that they should turn out in large numbers,” Kenyatta, the U.S.-educated son of Kenya’s founding father, Jomo Kenyatta, said after voting. “We’re tired as a country of electioneering and I think it’s time to move forward.”

A decade after 1,200 people were killed over another disputed election, many Kenyans feared violence could spread.

If some counties fail to hold elections, it could trigger legal challenges to the result, stirring longer-term instability and ethnic divisions.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court was due to hear a case seeking to delay the polls. But it was unable to sit after five out of the seven judges failed to show up, fuelling suspicions among opposition supporters.

“The lack of a quorum is highly unusual for a Supreme Court hearing,” a statement from the European Union said. “Not hearing this case has de facto cut off the legal path for remedy.”


OPPOSITION STRONGHOLDS

In Kisumu, the scene of major ethnic violence after a disputed election in 2007, many schools designated as polling stations were padlocked. Young men milled about outside.

In Kisumu Central, constituency returning officer John Ngutai said no voting materials had been distributed and only three of his 400 staff had turned up. One nervous official said his election work was a “suicide mission”.

Kisumu businessman Joshua Nyamori, 42, was one of the few voters brave enough to defy Odinga’s stay-away call but could not cast his ballot.

“Residents fear reprisal from political gangs organised by politicians. This is wrong,” he said.

In the coastal city of Mombasa, protesters lit tyres and timber along the main highway. Reuters contacted 18 polling stations there, and the highest voter turn-out any of them had registered at midday was 27. Four armed police were on guard at each station – double the number on duty last time.

“We have seen you, we know you and we have marked you,” a group of opposition supporters, shouted at two voters outside a polling station.

Yvonne Mwenesi, 21, was beaten outside another polling station before police rescued her.

“I had just voted and as I walked out, a group of men who I know attacked me saying I had betrayed them by voting,” she said, her nose bleeding.


CALL FOR PRAYERS

On the eve of the vote, Odinga backed off previous calls for protests and urged supporters to stay home.

“We advise Kenyans who value democracy and justice to hold vigils and prayers away from polling stations, or just stay at home,” he said in English.

Speakers who preceded him urged in the KiSwahili language that supporters should ensure the vote did not take place.

Odinga’s National Super Alliance coalition, whose supporters attacked polling staff in the run-up to the vote, could argue in court that the lack of open polling stations shows that the re-run is bogus. The Supreme Court said it would annul this election too if it did not meet legal standards.

The head of the election commission said last week he could not guarantee a free and fair vote, citing political interference and threats of violence. One election commissioner quit and fled the country. Another election official was tortured and murdered days before the Aug. 8 vote.

Kenya’s Election Observation Group, a coalition of civil society organisations, said an observer in Mombasa was beaten up and one in Kibera prevented from leaving the house.

They did not send observers to western Kenya over security fears, they said. In other places, 80 percent of the 766 polling stations they were observing opened on time.

(Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld, Duncan Miriri, David Lewis and John Ndiso in Nairobi and Joseph Akwiri in Mombasa; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Ralph Boulton)


The Huffington Post

Violence, Protests Mar Kenya’s Election Rerun

SHARE ON:
TagsAfricaBreakingNews
Previous Article

10 killed as Ethiopia forces clash with ...

Next Article

Voting underway in Kenya

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

alternativeafrica

Related articles More from author

  • News Now

    South Africa will not appeal against World Cup replay – unless referee is cleared

    September 12, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News NowWorld

    Long road ahead for Marawi rebuilding as fighting ends

    October 23, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    Gunmen Kill 13 Niger Soldiers in Attack Near Mali Border

    October 22, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    Nigerian toddler run over by Boko Haram walks again

    September 27, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    ‘The Zimbabwe of My Youth Is No More’

    November 19, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News NowPolitics

    Kenya’s Supreme Court quashes presidential election result

    September 6, 2017
    By alternativeafrica

Leave a reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might be interested

  • HealthNews NowWorld

    Another US health worker develops serious allergic reaction after getting Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine

  • News NowPoliticsWorld

    Kenya political crisis deepens in run-up to election

  • AfricaEnvironmentNews Now

    Egypt and Ethiopia to discuss Nile dam dispute – PM

Timeline

  • January 17, 2021

    Joe Biden to prioritize legal status for millions of immigrants

  • January 17, 2021

    EU impressed with Museveni victory despite allegations of fraud

  • January 17, 2021

    Guinea president, Alpha Conde becomes first African leader to receive Covid-19 jab

  • January 17, 2021

    Ghanaian Pastor murders daughter over allege witchcraft

  • January 17, 2021

    UK bans deadly Chinese hand sanitiser containing toxic substance

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Morocco begins regional integration by connecting Casablanca Airport with High Speed Train

    By alternativeafrica
    January 4, 2020
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • Nigeria: 32,000 capacity Lagos rice mill to start production in 2020

    By alternativeafrica
    December 23, 2019
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail – Future agricultures
    on
    October 16, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail - The Zimbabwean
    on
    October 12, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...
  • Millitants in Central Mali Set Jail Ablaze in Attack Killing Two | taktik(z) GDI (Government Defense ...
    on
    August 11, 2020

    Fifteen gendarmes killed in another attack on Mali camp

    […] attack fol­lowed a January ...
AlternativeAfrica.com is an independent Pan African News Website dedicated primarily to influencing the negative narratives about Africa. We hope to do this by focusing and showcasing the many developmental strides sweeping across the continent.

Read more >>>

Contact Info

  • 22 Laburnum Court, Laburnum Road, Mitcham London, CR4 2NA, United Kingdom
  • +44(0)2036320939 | +44(0)7535019197 | +44(0)7305356327
  • info@alternativeafrica.com
  • Recent

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Joe Biden to prioritize legal status for millions of immigrants

    By alternativeafrica
    January 17, 2021
  • EU impressed with Museveni victory despite allegations of fraud

    By alternativeafrica
    January 17, 2021
  • Guinea president, Alpha Conde becomes first African leader to receive Covid-19 jab

    By alternativeafrica
    January 17, 2021
  • Ghanaian Pastor murders daughter over allege witchcraft

    By alternativeafrica
    January 17, 2021
  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Macron in Ivory Coast to launch anti-terrorism academy

    By alternativeafrica
    December 21, 2019
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail – Future agricultures
    on
    October 16, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • The return of fortress conservation: why excluding people means biodiversity conservation will fail - The Zimbabwean
    on
    October 12, 2020

    Inside the training camp of Akashinga, Zimbabwe’s armed, all-women anti-poaching rangers

    […] In parallel to ...
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...

Photostream

    Follow us

    • Home
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Contact Us
    © Copyright Alternative Africa 2019. All rights reserved.