Kenya's bloggers in tears

2008-01-01 10:23

Nairobi - As Kenya burst into flames on Monday following the announcement that President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected in allegedly flawed polls, the country's bloggers lamented the process which could have been revolutionary in the East African nation's steps to democracy.

Defeated opposition candidate Raila Odinga has rejected the results, which showed him losing by 230 000 votes, after leading by a margin of up to one million as the ballots were being counted. Odinga also led in all but one opinion poll ahead of Thursday's election.

Had Odinga won, he would have been one of the few African leaders to unseat an incumbent at the ballot box and the only Kenyan to have done so since independence from Britain in 1963.

"Tears are rolling down my eyes as I'm writing this," posted the Kenyan Pundit. "It is a sad day for Kenya when millions of first-time young voters have had their voice ignored - how do you tell these people that their vote matters in 2012?"

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement said it has evidence that vote tallies at some 48 out of the country's 210 constituencies were massaged.

The European Union said some of its observers were turned away at polling stations and noted that results were suspicious in at least one constituency.

'Fair people'

"I feel that the people of Kenya have been completely robbed of everything they have gained over the last 40 years. We lacked few things but at least we were generally a fair people," wrote the blogger from the Thinker's Room.

Analysts and diplomats have praised Kenya's strides toward democracy, from the end of single-party rule in 1992 to historic elections 10 years later that ousted former president Daniel arap Moi, ending his 24-year kleptocratic rule.

Kenya is seen as an anchor of stability in a troubled region. Its history has generally been peaceful since independence, except for an attempted coup in 1982, which ushered in a violent crackdown by then president Moi.

Some observers have said the deadly riots that burst out when Kibaki was declared winner on Sunday evening and have persisted since are worse than the 1982 violence.

More than a dozen people have been killed in the post-election violence that has erupted from Nairobi's slums, to the shores of Lake Victoria in the west - an Odinga stronghold - to the Muslim coastline.

'A beacon of hope'

Observers have warned that festering ethnic tensions could boil over and lead to the worst violence in Kenya's otherwise peaceful history.

The blogger behind Kumekucha urged restraint from all sides.

"We are a beacon of hope in this part of Africa; we are the hope of the people who live within our borders.

"Kenya should not be allowed to go to the dogs." - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA