RAGING AT ‘RIGGING’
RESOLVE: WE WILL NOT RELENT, SAYS OPPOSITION Critics of Kenyatta’s re-election vow that ‘every vote will be made to count’.
A man runs past a shack set alight by protesters in Kibera slum in Nairobi over the weekend. Three people, including a child, have been shot dead in Kenya during opposition protests, which flared for a second day on Saturday, after the hotly disputed election victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta. There were demonstrations and running battles with police in Nairobi slums after losing opposition candidate Raila Odinga claimed the election was massively rigged.
Tensions remained high in Kenya yesterday after 11 people died in violent protests, and the opposition stood by its demand that the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta be overturned.
While much of the country was calm, stone-throwing supporters of defeated veteran rival Raila Odinga squared off on Saturday with security forces in the country’s west and in the slums of the capital Nairobi.
A senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity that eight bodies from Nairobi’s slums had arrived at the city morgue, and an AFP photographer saw the body of a young girl whose family said she had been shot in the back while watching the protests from a balcony.
In western Kenya, a police officer said a man had been killed during a protest in the town of Siaya and local government official Wilson Njega confirmed one person had been shot dead in protests at Kisumu.
It remains unclear what the next move will be for Odinga’s National Super Alliance (Nasa) opposition coalition, but party leaders have said they will neither back down, nor take their grievances to court.
“We will not be cowed, we will not relent,” Nasa official Johnson Muthama told reporters on Saturday.
He and other opposition stalwarts insist that elections held on Tuesday were manipulated. They also accuse the police of cracking down on protesters in an effort to force the coalition “into submission”.
Addressing the media on Saturday, Muthama held up a bag full of bullet casings he claimed were used by security forces to kill “innocent Kenyans” taking part in street demonstrations after the Friday night announcement of Kenyatta’s victory.
“We wish to assure the people that we have the will, the determination and the means to make sure your vote will count at the end of the day,” he said.