Police clash with protesters as Kenya election re-run opens
Police clash with protesters as Kenya election re-run opens:- Polls opened this Thursday morning in Kenya’s contested re-run presidential election, as police shot tear gas and reportedly live rounds at protesters in opposition strongholds.
The vote comes after an August election was annulled by the Supreme Court, which cited irregularities within the electoral process. But the re-run was rocked by scandal after scandal, including the withdrawal of Raila Odinga, the main opposition candidate, who said country lacked the institutions to hold a credible election.
Odinga’s decision not to run has made the outcome of the vote a foregone conclusion for incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta. But it has raised concerns about a widening rift in one of East Africa’s most influential nations, which has historically been seen as a maturing democracy.
That rift, which falls largely along ethnic lines, between Kenyatta’s Kikuyu tribe and Odinga’s Luo tribe, was visible across Nairobi on Thursday morning.
Kenyatta supporters arrived at the polls to reaffirm his re-election. Meanwhile, Odinga supporters either stayed home and refused to vote, or, in a few tense parts of the city, lobbed rocks at police, who responded with force.
“I am voting for a peaceful country and I am voting for Uhuru,” said Selly Bahati, who said her business selling shoes in Nairobi has declined by 50 percent during the last few months of political instability. “But it’s true that we are divided by tribe, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
Bahati arrived at an empty polling center in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum. While she stood outside, men screamed at her.
“What are you doing there?” one man yelled.
Deeper in the slum, in a more fierce Odinga stronghold, running battles between police and protesters went on for hours. Police chased young men through the slum’s narrow streets, and one protester said at least three people had been shot and taken to a local hospital.
When police escorted a bus full of ballot papers, local men shouted at them, arguing that there was no reason to supply voting materials in a neighborhood where residents supported a candidate who had withdrawn from the election.
“Why are you bringing the papers here?” Vincent Omondi yelled at one officer.
It remains unclear how Odinga’s supporters will respond once Kenyatta’s re-election is formally declared. For his part, Odinga has suggested that he will transform his party into a “resistance movement” aimed at obstructing the next government. But in a statement Wednesday, he stopped short of encouraging violent protests.
After a 2007 election dispute, also involving Odinga, violence erupted along tribal lines and more than 1,000 people were killed. This time, the dynamic is different, as Kenyatta now has total control over Kenya’s security forces, making protracted mob violence less likely.
But fears of political instability — and an overreaction of the security forces — were prevalent as voting and protests continued.
“Kenya is at risk of losing much of what it has gained since 2008 unless it comes together at this crucial moment to preserve its democracy and fundamental freedoms,” said a statement from 15 Western ambassadors and heads of missions in Kenya, including the U.S. ambassador.
Source:- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/police-clash-with-protesters-as-kenya-election-re-run-opens/2017/10/26/7c00e56e-b5cc-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.a25c5e792c41
