Protests over election fraud claim turn deadly in Kenya

At least six people killed in protests after opposition claims Kenya’s polls were ‘hacked’ in favour of the president.

The opposition says hackers infiltrated the database of Kenya’s election body [Goran Tomasevic/Reuters]

At least six people have been killed in post-election violence in Kenya after opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed “massive” fraud in Tuesday’s vote.
Two people were shot dead in the capital Nairobi on Wednesday, said the city’s police chief Japheth Koome, claiming they took advantage of the protests to steal.

At least one more person was shot dead earlier in the day in South Mugirango constituency in Kisii County, around 300km west of Nairobi, during a clash with the security forces, according to Leonard Katana, a regional police commander, the AP news agency reported.

In the southeastern Tana River region, police said five men armed with knives had attacked a vote tallying station and stabbed one person to death.

“Our officers killed two of them and we are looking for others who escaped,” said regional police chief Larry Kieng.

“We have not established the motive yet, we don’t know if it is political or if it’s a criminal incident but we are investigating and action will be taken.”

READ MORE: In Kenya’s Kisumu, prayers for ‘Baba’ Odinga’s presidency

In the port city of Kisumu, the hometown of Odinga, police used tear gas and shot at supporters of the opposition leader, said demonstrator Sebastian Omolo.

“He is not accepting the results and that is why we are on the streets, but police have started shooting,” Omolo said.

Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed:

Most shops and businesses centres remained shut for the second day in Nairobi as people waited for the presidential results.

On the streets of Kibera, the country’s biggest slum, young men stood on street corners glued to their mobile phones looking for updates.

Everyone is keeping an eye on what the opposition leaders will do if Kenyatta is declared the winner.

Odinga lost to Kenyatta in 2013 and went to court. He lost the legal challenge and Kenyatta was confirmed as the president.

It is not clear if Odinga is willing to go court again.

Kisumu shopkeeper Festus Odhiambo said he was praying for peace even as protesters blocked roads into city slums with bonfires and boulders.

The contest between President Uhuru Kenyatta, a wealthy 55-year-old businessman, and Odinga, 72, a former political prisoner and son of Kenya’s first vice president, has been a hard-fought election that stoked fears of possible violence.

Odinga rejected the partial results of the presidential polls, saying hackers infiltrated the database of Kenya’s election body to manipulate the “democratic process”.

Alleged hacking

The opposition leader said that he could not reveal his sources on how he got the information on the alleged hacking.

In a press briefing that took place in the capital Nairobi, the presidential candidate said his party’s results are “completely different” from those published on the election commission website.

Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Mombasa, said that Odinga was alleging that important forms have not materialised from the tallying stations.
“Once the votes are tallied and transmitted electronically, these forms are meant to back up exactly how many votes were given to each particular candidate to validate what exactly has gone on,” she said.

Wafula Chebukati, the head of Kenya’s electoral and boundaries commission, said at a news conference: “As a commission we shall have our own investigative system to kick in. We shall come up with a methodology to find out whether or not those claims are correct.”

On Wednesday morning, the election commission website showed Kenyatta leading with 54.4 percent of the votes against 44.8 percent for Odinga, a margin of nearly 1.4 million votes, after 94 percent of the votes were counted.

READ MORE: Kenyan elections – The ethnicity factor

The roads of the country’s biggest slum in Nairobi, Kibera – an opposition stronghold – remained empty on Wednesday afternoon.

Simeon Otieno, a 33-year-old father of three, stood near his house looking tense.

“Everyone is staying home. Baba [Odinga] asked people to be calm but it is very difficult. We hope he wins but they always changed the result to deny him victory,” Otieno, a labourer, told Al Jazeera.

“This election is the same as 2007. They stole his votes and that caused a lot of problems. I hope nothing happens but we are all tense.”

At the other end of the slum, Nancy Odongo sat in front of the shop where she works. The door, however, was locked.

“I hope this ends quickly because we need to go back to work and feed our families,” the mother of two said.

“Elections are always bad news for us poor people. I have to pay bills and feed my children. I don’t care who wins.”

Hussein Ibrahim, another resident of the area, pointed to the long line of shops that were closed.

“There is tension after every election. That’s why all these shops are closed and why no one is coming out of their homes,” Ibrahim said.

“No one is going out because they don’t know what could happen next.”
Kenyatta camp denies claims

Raphael Tunju, secretary-general of Kenyatta’s Jubilee party, earlier shrugged off the fraud allegations made by the Odinga camp.

“I don’t expect anything else from NASA,” he said, referring to Odinga’s National Super Alliance party.

“Let’s put it this way – if the results which are being streamed showed that they were leading, what would they be saying now?”

Election officials on Tuesday acknowledged the opposition objection but defended their actions.

During the 2013 polls, Odinga alleged fraud but quelled unrest by taking his complaints to the courts.

This time, the government deployed more than 150,000 security personnel, including wildlife rangers, to protect 41,000 polling stations.

Additional reporting by Hamza Mohamed in Nairobi: @Hamza_Africa

WATCH: Fourth time lucky? Raila Odinga’s new bid to be Kenya’s president (3:02)

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

 

 

 

 

Clashes in Kenya after opposition leader’s election fraud claim

Protests held as Raila Odinga says figures showing 54% of vote has gone to current president Uhuru Kenyatta are ‘fictitious’

Protesters carry sticks as they run along a street in Mathare, a slum area north of Nairobi. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Jason Burke in Nairobi

Wednesday 9 August 2017 17.23 BST

Protesters and police in Kenya have clashed after the leader of the opposition claimed he was cheated of victory by a hacking attack that he said manipulated the results in the country’s presidential election.

Raila Odinga, the leader of the National Super Alliance, said election commission computer systems and databases were tampered with overnight to “create errors” in favour of rival candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been in power since 2013.

Odinga urged his supporters to remain calm, but added: “I don’t control the people.”

“You can only cheat the people for so long,” he said. “The 2017 general election was a fraud.”

With ballots from 96% of polling stations counted, results released by Kenya’s electoral commission show Kenyatta leading with 54.4% of the vote, against Odinga’s 44.8%, a difference of 1.4 million votes.

The electionis seen as a key test of the stability of one of Africa’s most important countries.

Demonstrators set barricades on fire in Kisumu, Kenya, on Wednesday after Tuesday’s disputed presidential election. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters

Across most of the country streets were empty, most businesses remained shut and an uneasy calm prevailed. The violent incidents were limited, raising hopes that Kenya may avoid a major breakdown of law and order.

In the western city of Kisumu police fired teargas at a group of 100 opposition supporters who had been chanting: “No Raila, no peace.”

Protests were also held in the poor Nairobi neighbourhood of Mathare, an Odinga stronghold.

At about 2pm, two young men were killed and five injured when police opened fire on demonstrators who had blocked a road, a witness told the Guardian.
Japheth Koome, Nairobi police chief, said the men who had been shot were thieves.

Kenya goes to the polls in closely contested election – in pictures
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Scattered clashes in Mathare continued throughout the afternoon, with groups of youths hurling rocks at police who responded with teargas.

“We want them to hear. They won’t hear us shouting. So we will use stones. We know our rights and they can’t kill us all,” said Kevin Odhiambo, a 25-year-old carpenter in Mathare.

But others from the neighbourhood branded the protesters “troublemakers”.

A third death occurred when police opened fire in Kisii county, 300km west of the capital.

Kenya Railways suspended operations of trains on its recently launched line from Mombasa to Nairobi – a flagship infrastructure project – until further notice.

In 2007, Odinga’s angry rejection of the result in an election marred by irregularities prompted rioting and retaliation by security forces that tipped the country into its worst crisis for decades. About 1,200 people were killed in the ethnic violence that followed.

Odinga, a polarising figure who was making his fourth bid for power, also claimed that the murder of a senior election official last week was linked to the alleged hacking attack. Chris Msando, the election commission’s head of IT, was found strangled and tortured in a forest on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Odinga, 72, said Msando’s identity and log-ins had been used to access key computer servers by those behind the rigging attempt.

The EU observer mission declined to comment on Odinga’s claims, which election officials have said they will investigate. “We will come up with a methodology to verify the allegations made on hacking,” said Waguma Chebukati, the chair of the electoral commission. “For now, I cannot say whether or not the system has been hacked.”

The Kenya human rights commission – a well-known non-governmental organisation – said it had discovered some discrepancies in an initial comparison between provisional results announced by the election commission and paper forms signed at polling stations by party agents.

In coming days, election officials will present more forms allowing further scrutiny of the results.

Many Kenyans say a repeat of the violence of 2007 is unlikely as the country has learned from the traumatic experience. One voter told the Guardian during polling that younger citizens wanted “peace, peace, peace”.

Raila Odinga, the National Super Alliance coalition leader, told a press conference that projections from his own team showed he was ‘far ahead’. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

In 2013, Odinga also rejected defeat. He took his fight to the courts and lost.

Odinga supporters interviewed in recent days said they would not take to the streets if they believed they had been fairly defeated, though they insisted their leader had been robbed of victory during the last two polls.

“There won’t be any problems if the process is fair and transparent, but if it is being rigged there’ll be chaos,” said Paul Ouma, a bus company manager, before the poll.

Young men in Mathare predicted that “life would never be the same again” if the opposition lost. “People will fight … it will have been stolen,” said Brian Aswani.

In Kibera, another poor neighbourhood where Odinga is popular, young men said they would wait for their leader’s decision. “If we lose, then we will wait for our leader Raila [Odinga] to speak. If he says it is OK, then it is OK. If he says fight, we will fight,” said Abraham Ashidiva, 24.

Odinga, 72, is the son of Kenya’s first vice-president. He is an ethnic Luo from the west, an area that has long felt neglected by the central government and resentful of its perceived exclusion from power.

Protesters against Uhuru Kenyatta shout slogans and carry a banner in Mathare, Kenya. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Kenyatta, the 55-year-old son of the first president, Jomo Kenyatta, is a Kikuyu, the ethnic group that has supplied three of the four presidents since independence from Britain in 1963.

On Tuesday, Kenyatta called on whoever lost to concede. “In the event that they lose, let us accept the will of the people. I am willing myself to accept the will of the people, so let them too,” Kenyatta said as he voted at the Mutomo primary school in Gatundu, about 20 miles north of the capital.

Later, Odinga told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that he would accept defeat “in the unlikely event that I lost fairly”.

To win the election, a candidate needs one vote more than 50%, and at least a quarter of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.

In addition to a new president, Kenyans are electing regional politicians after a 2010 constitution devolved power and money to the counties.

Observers see the election as the last confrontation of the dynastic rivalry between the families of Kenyatta and Odinga, which has lasted more than half a century. The presidential candidates’ fathers, Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Odinga, went from allies in the struggle for independence from Britain to bitter rivals.

Source     –   The Guardian