Tensions increase as Kenya election campaign enters final stretch
Kenya’s election campaign entered its final week yesterday, with a tight race between the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his rival, Raila Odinga.
The longtime foes compete for a second time on Tuesday after a campaign marked by the opposition’s deep distrust of the electoral commission.
The vote comes 10 years after Mr Odinga claimed an election was stolen from him and Kenya plunged into two months of politically motivated ethnic clashes that, along with a police crackdown on protests, left more than 1,100 dead and 600,000 displaced.
Voting in Kenya is largely along community lines, and Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga lead formidable alliances of different ethnic blocs with even numbers, meaning turnout will be crucial.
During the run-up, a top electoral official was murdered and there have been months of attacks by pastoralists invading private land in the Rift Valley, which has been blamed on politicians trying to displace people before the vote.
Hate speech pamphlets have been circulating in the region and people have begun fleeing their homes, fearing trouble. Elsewhere, Kenyans have moved from cities to their hometowns to vote – and to seek security. Many foreign companies have temporarily closing down, advising foreign staff to leave.
“The anxiety that has engulfed the country is unhealthy,” a recent editorial in the Daily Nation newspaper said. “Businesses are holding back, tourism is slackening. Worse, some foreign embassies have sent out travel advisories to their nationals against visiting Kenya.”
Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab has also stepped up attacks in north-east Kenya ahead of the election.
About 180,000 security force troops have been sent to secure the poll in which Kenyans will elect a president, governors, legislators, senators, county officials and women’s representatives. Constitutional reforms after the 2007 violence decentralised power to the country’s 47 counties in the 2013 vote.
This took some power out of the presidency but raised the stakes – and potential for violence – at a local level.
All eyes remain on the battle between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, whose fathers Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga were rivals in the independence era and decades after.
Mr Odinga, 72, leading the National Super Alliance of five major opposition parties, is running for office for the fourth time and claims Mr Kenyatta is planning to rig the election.
Mr Kenyatta, 55, has accused Mr Odinga of trying to stoke violence. He is seeking re-election after a first term in which he was credited with a big infrastructure drive and overseeing steady economic growth of more than 5 per cent. However, his administration has been dogged by graft scandals.
Kenya has more than 19 million registered voters. To avoid a second round, the winning candidate must take more than 50 per cent of the overall vote, and 25 per cent of the vote in at least 24 counties.