Word: odinga
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What started as political protest quickly turned into something much more dangerous: ethnic conflict. That's because the election was also a competition between the country's two largest ethnic groups--the Luo, who support Odinga, and the Kikuyu, who back Kibaki. The two groups have been wary of each other since Kenya achieved independence from Britain in 1963, and the Luo have never held the presidency...
With their candidate leading in early polls, the Luo were poised to celebrate a historic victory. Instead, Odinga's nearly 1 million-vote lead vanished amid reports of improbably high voter turnout in Kibaki strongholds. Kibaki was hastily sworn in and promptly banned live TV as the violence surged in the streets. (At the height of the crisis, a broadcaster aired children's shows in which smiling kids sang, "Patty-cake, patty-cake.") On Jan. 1, a church in Kiambaa where Kikuyu had sought refuge was burned by an angry mob. At least 50 people, many of them women...
...according to media reports. But fears of far more bloodshed were averted when, faced by hundreds of riot police, the O.D.M. called off plans for tens of thousands of its activists to march to Uhuru Park in the center of Nairobi to "inaugurate" their leader, Raila Odinga, as the "people's president." Party workers said the protest was merely being postponed, either until Friday or Tuesday...
...Odinga claims the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki rigged the Dec. 27 general election when Odinga was on the verge of winning. That allegation has been backed by statements from the U.S., Britain and European Union observers alleging irregularities in the counting process. It was further strengthened Thursday when Kenya's attorney general called for an independent investigation into the poll. "It is necessary... that a proper tally of the valid certificates returned and confirmed should be undertaken immediately on a priority basis by an agreed and independent person or body," Attorney General Amos Wako said. The country, he added...
South African archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived in Nairobi overnight after being dispatched by Nelson Mandela's high-profile mediation group The Elders. However, Tutu's efforts to broker a compromise between the two sides had little immediate success. While he met Odinga, Tutu told a press conference he was unable to make an appointment with Kibaki. "This is a country that has been held up as a model of stability," said Tutu. "This picture has been shattered. This is not the Kenya that we know...