Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy urged the opposition on Wednesday to end unrest over alleged bias in the electoral commission, but opposition leaders said protests would continue if their demands for dialogue were not met. To help defuse tensions, Kenyatta on Tuesday had talks with his political rival, the leader of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy Raila Odinga, but the rare meeting between the two appeared to have little impact. The president’s office said Tuesday’s meeting yielded no deal between Kenyatta and Odinga on how to revamp the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Police in Nairobi fired tear gas at people leaving a rally of the Coalition that was fully authorised and had passed without incident, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
The next presidential and parliamentary polls in Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, are not due until August 2017 but politicians are already trying to galvanise supporters in a country prone to political strife. Violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the outcome in 2013.
The opposition wants the IEBC scrapped, accusing it of bias. The commission’s electronic identification system collapsed during the 2013 election that brought Kenyatta to power. The opposition cried foul but a court declared the result valid. Odinga, who was also running for president, accepted the ruling.
Full Article: Kenyan government urges end to protests, opposition defiant.