Kenya-'No Raila, No Peace'

KENYA

‘No Raila, No Peace’

The challenger in Kenya’s bitterly contested presidential elections blamed his loss to incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta on the alleged hacking of the electronic voting system, triggering violent protests Wednesday that killed at least three, USA Today reported.

While the violence has not as of yet reached the scale seen 10 years ago after another disputed election, when over 1,100 were killed, supporters of Raila Odinga burned tires, smashed shacks, blocked roads and threw stones at police, yelling, “No Raila, no peace,” according to the newspaper.

The violence was reported in the poor neighborhoods that are the stronghold of Odinga’s support. Many fear the street protests will continue in the days ahead.

With the vote count nearly completed, Kenyatta led Odinga 54.3% to 44.8%, or a margin of 1.5 million votes. This would be Odinga’s fourth loss in a presidential election.

Odinga charged that hackers infiltrated the election commission database and manipulated the results using the identity of Christopher Msando, the election official in charge of the IT systems who was found brutally murdered last week.

The election commission said it will investigate the charges and the Kenya Human Rights commission said it will look into discrepancies it found in the results, USA Today said.

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