Opposition leader Raila Odinga to proceed with Uhuru Park rally this afternoon to press for poll result to be overturned
By Polycarp Machira and Agencies
Kenya electoral commission chief Samuel Kivuitu is making world headlines after he announced in a media interview that he was subjected to intense pressure by senior aides of President Mwai Kibaki to announce results as they were given to him, despite his own reservations.
The turn of events has emerged as the Kenyan polls violence continues, with hundreds of people losing their lives and thousands left homeless and fleeing back to Central Province after being singled out as supporters of the president.
On Tuesday night, Mr Kivuitu made the dramatic plea that he was subjected to intense pressure from Kibaki aides about making that announcement.
Mr Kivuitu's admission further dented the credibility of the election results upon which the president was hastily sworn in, sparking the violence.
In what appeared to many as a dramatic climb_down from the verdict of a polls win by the president, when asked if indeed President Kibaki won the elections, he said: "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."
He said he took the presidential election winner�s certificate to State House, Nairobi, after "some people threatened to collect it while I�m the one mandated by law to do so."
"I arrived at State House to take the certificate and I found the Chief Justice there, ready to swear_in Kibaki," Mr Kivuitu elaborated.
Evaluating the pressure he faced, he said that some PNU (Party of National Unity) and ODM_Kenya leaders put him under pressure by frequent telephone calls, demanding that the results be announced immediately.
President Kibaki ran for re_election on a PNU ticket, arising from the breakdown of the opposition alliance of 2002 put together by current opposition leader Raila Odinga. The latter faced rivalry from former Foreign minister Kalonzo Musyoka.
Mr Kivuitu's remarks came in the wake of parallel pressure from the European Union as well as the United States. British Premier Gordon Brown telephoned both Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga to express concern and urge them to work to rein in the violence.
The EU observer mission has confronted Mr Kibaki's camp with lists of doctored results in numerous constituencies in the central provinces, where the polling station tallies and ECK lists on presidential votes in various constituencies showed wide discrepancies.
Mr Maina Kiai of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights had similarly urged Mr Kivuitu not to announce the results until complaints which arose were addressed.
"I had thought of resigning, but thought against it because I don�t want people to say I�m a coward," he similarly stated.
The embattled ECK chairman made the remarks shortly after meeting with 22 ECK commissioners. He suggested that the issues be taken to court and ruled upon as a matter of urgency. "If this matter is finally taken to court, the ruling should be made urgently so that if it were decided that Raila is the President, so be it. If it is Kibaki, so be it," he specified.
Kivuitu said he announced the results because the commission had no legal mandate to investigate complaints raised by the opposition immediately.
He fell short of naming individuals from the two parties � PNU and ODM_Kenya � who coerced him to announce the disputed poll outcome.
The commission was consulting eminent lawyers over the next course of action so that its actions remain within the law, he stated.
The EU observer team has discredited the poll results and urged for an independent audit. On his part, Kivuitu said he backed independent investigation into what may have happened, noting that this would be the case only if the law provides for it.
"We are culprits as a commission. We have to leave it to an independent group to investigate what actually went wrong," the chairman said, stunning local and international journalists, who had gathered at his Nairobi residence.
It has also emerged that some countries concerned with the poll outcome, like South Africa, had sent in their electoral officials to the country.
Mr Kivuitu said the officials would be arriving on Wednesday to look into the matter.
The ECK chairman was in a meeting with 22 polls commissioners, described by commission deputy chairman Kihara Muttu as "a house_keeping meeting."
In a signed statement, the 22 commissioners condemned the violence, which up to yesterday had claimed the lives of about 300 people.
President Kibaki yesterday invited all members of the new opposition_dominated parliament to a meeting at the State House.
The meeting was attended by some 90 new MPs, according to later reports on international media. Similarly, ODM leader Raila Odinga has confirmed that he will go ahead with the mass rally at Uhuru Park, although the police had firmly placed a ban on the rally.
In a parallel move, the ODM urged the government to accept a recount on the presidential vote by an international team, especially the EU mission.
Easy calm was reported in Nairobi yesterday with a few shops opened, though under tight security, after both parties hit out at actions of violence as genocide.
Mr Kibaki blamed the ODM of orchestrating attacks on houses, shops and vehicles, while Mr Odinga said police were shooting to kill unarmed civilians instead of arresting as required by law.
But Michela Wrong, an author and journalist, told the media that the fighting wasn't simply an ethnic split, but was really about the divisions between rich and poor.
�She said: "That's the ugly surface of a much more profound split but there is a sense that this was an elitist government, it was a government that was really only interested in itself, in its own particular group. "They were doling out jobs to their own people; all the key ministries were in the hands of that group but at the same time were ignoring the needs of the poor."
Meanwhile, President Jakaya Kikwete is expected in Kampala for consultations with President Yoweri Museveni over the instability in Kenya caused by alleged flawed elections, according to Uganda�s Daily Monitor.
The president was scheduled to arrive in Kampala for a meeting with Mr Museveni, one of the region�s power brokers and the chairman of the East African Community, of which Kenya is a member. The other member states are Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. |
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