Poll concerns not addressed, says Kenyan opposition

Nairobi/Kisumu, Kenya - Kenya's opposition

said on Friday it would "not be a party" to the election

commission's imminent announcement of the result of the

presidential vote because its concerns had not been addressed.

Provisional results from polling stations show President

Uhuru Kenyatta with a lead of 1.4 million votes as he vies for a

second and final five-year term.

Opposition candidate Raila Odinga's camp has disputed the

count and said it would accept the election result only if

allowed to see raw data on the commission's computer servers.

Odinga has lost the last two elections, claiming fraud in

both cases.

Many Kenyans fear a repeat of the violence that followed the

2007 contested election, when about 1,200 people were killed and

hundreds of thousands displaced as political protests lead to

ethnic killings.

"We raised some very serious concerns, they have not

responded to them. As NASA (opposition coalition) we shall not

be party to the process they are about to make," senior

opposition official Musalia Mudavadi said.

James Orengo, chief election agent for the opposition

coalition, said: "This has been an entire charade," adding: "The

Kenyan people have never disappointed ... every time an election

has been stolen, the Kenyan people have stood up to make sure

changes are made to make Kenya a better place.

"Going to court, for us, is not an alternative. We have been

there before."

Earlier, Orengo had called for the candidates and observers

to be given access to the election commission's servers so there

could be a transparent audit of data from 41,000 polling

stations across the country.

Yakub Guliye, election commissioner in charge of information

technology, said the opposition had not made a formal request

and it would not act on a verbal request.

Normal procedure calls for the commission to release final

results after cross checking its electronic tally with paper

forms.

Odinga's camp has said figures released by the commission

since Tuesday's vote were "fictitious" and that "confidential

sources" within the commission had provided figures showing

Odinga had a large lead in the race.

The election commission rejected the claims, pointing out

they contained basic mathematical errors.

SECURITY

Police had beefed up security across much of Kenya -

particularly in opposition strongholds in the west and parts of

Nairobi - in anticipation of the announcing of the election

result on Friday.

At an international conference centre, ruling party

supporters sang "Today is our day, God is good" as the president

arrived to address them.

Kenya is the leading economy in East Africa and any

instability would be likely to ripple through the region.

Odinga is a member of the Luo, an ethnic group from the west

of the country that has long said it is excluded from power.

Kenyatta is from the Kikuyu group, which has supplied three of

four presidents since Kenya gained independence from Britain in

1963.

International observers have given the thumbs-up to the vote

and U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec issued a statement on behalf of

the diplomatic community calling for any complaints to be

channelled through the courts, not street protests.

"If there are disputes or disagreements, the Kenyan

constitution is very clear on how they are to be addressed.

Violence must never be an option," he said on Friday.

But the opposition criticised foreign observers.

"The observers largely served the interests of the

government," Orengo said.

As well as a new president, Kenyans also elected new

lawmakers and local representatives. Some of those races have

also been disputed, leading to violence in Garissa and Tana

River counties. 

Reuters