Violent protests erupted in Raila Odinga’s stronghold of Kisumu and parts of Nairobi after he lost his fifth bid for Kenya’s presidency on Monday, with angry demonstrators alleging vote-rigging as police fired tear gas to disperse them.
Odinga, 77, a veteran opposition politician now backed by the ruling party, has not spoken in public since the results were announced, but has accused his opponents of cheating him out of victory in the 2007, 2013 and 2017 presidential elections.
The 2007 polls in particular — which many independent observers also considered deeply flawed — cast a long shadow over Kenyan politics, unleashing a wave of ethnic violence that pitted tribal groups against each other and cost more than 1,100 lives.
As news of the results filtered through to Kisumu, large numbers of protesters congregated on a roundabout in the lakeside city, throwing stones and setting tyres on fire as they blocked roads with broken rocks.
“It was not free and fair. We were…
Source: Guardian Newspaper
