Kenyan opposition vows protests, urges new vote
Kenya’s main opposition alliance said it won’t challenge the results that gave President Uhuru Kenyatta a landslide victory in last week’s disputed election rerun in court and instead vowed to mobilize its supporters to press for another vote.
“This election must not stand,” opposition leader Raila Odinga told reporters in Nairobi, the capital.
Musalia Mudavadi, a senior leader of Odinga’s four-party National Super Alliance, said that while private citizens may challenge the election in court, the coalition won’t take legal action against the vote.
Kenyatta, 56, secured 98.3 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election that the Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission said was free and fair, but was boycotted by Odinga, who described it as a sham. The electoral agency said the turnout dropped to 38.8 percent from 79 percent in the Aug. 8 contest, which the Supreme Court nullified after the electoral agency failed to disprove opposition claims of rigging.
The opposition’s decision to shun the legal process ups the ante in a violent standoff that has seen police and opposition supporters engaging in running street battles in Nairobi’s slums and Odinga strongholds in western Kenya, claiming about 78 lives since the initial vote in August.
Ethnic tensions have also flared between members of Odinga’s Luo community and Kenyatta’s Kikuyu group, raising fears of a repetition of the widespread violence that ensued after a contested 2007 vote and claimed at least 1,100 lives.
“There is an urgent need for dialog between the two sides, for institutions to be given the space and security to work with full independence, and for grievances to be addressed through democratic and judicial channels,” a European Union observer mission said in a statement.
Bond investors indicated that they view the declaration of Kenyatta’s victory as the beginning of the end of the crisis, with the yield on the government’s international bonds due in 2024 tumbling 16 basis points to 6.16 percent since the announcement of the results.
Such optimism may be misplaced, according to Ben Payton, head of Africa at U.K.-based consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, who sees a strong likelihood of more violence in Odinga strongholds over coming days and further legal challenges to the election.
“Kenyatta will now rule over a country where huge swathes of the population believe he has usurped the presidency,” he said in a note to clients. “Kenya’s ongoing electoral crisis demonstrates the reality that investors face an inherently volatile environment in East Africa’s largest economy.”
The opposition alliance’s plans include staging protests and economic boycotts, and setting up a national People’s Assembly comprising the leaders of civil rights, business and religious groups and labor unions to press for fresh elections.
We-The-People, a coalition of civil rights and religious organizations, labor unions, academics and other groups, described the political standoff as “an escalating crisis” that has been exacerbated, rather than resolved, by the election rerun.
“It has resulted in more disruption, death and violence,” the group said on Tuesday. “Kenya is in the grip of a massive security crisis, marked by impunity in state institutions.”