The Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga, threw early results of the country’s presidential election into doubt on Wednesday, claiming that the electoral commission’s servers had been hacked to award the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, a significant lead. Given Kenya’s history of postelection violence, Mr. Odinga’s comments renewed fears of deadly unrest, although he asked supporters to remain calm. Rights organizations have also warned of discrepancies in the preliminary results. Protests followed shortly afterward in parts of Kisumu, one of Kenya’s biggest cities and an opposition stronghold. Demonstrators also burned tires, set up roadblocks and clashed with the police in parts of Nairobi, the capital, The Associated Press reported. Earlier, at least one protester was killed by police gunfire in Kisii County, The A.P. said, citing a regional police commander, Leonard Katana.
Kenyan elections in 2007, widely believed to have been flawed, touched off bloodshed that left at least 1,300 people dead and 600,000 displaced. After elections in 2013, when voting systems were afflicted by widespread malfunctions and there were again accusations of vote rigging, more than 300 people were killed.
In the prelude to this year’s vote, campaigns were dominated by concerns about the potential for vote rigging, and a senior election official in charge of voting technology, Christopher Msando, was killed.
The election was largely conducted in peace on Tuesday, with just a few technical glitches reported at polling stations. But Mr. Odinga told a news conference in Nairobi, “The 2017 general election was a fraud. The electoral fraud and fabrication of results was massive and extensive,” he said.
Full Article: Kenya Election Returns Were Hacked, Opposition Leader Says – The New York Times.