The Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he will go to court over last week’s presidential election results, ignoring calls by some election observers for him to concede defeat to President Uhuru Kenyatta. Twenty-four people have died in violence since the election on 8 August. Odinga’s decision will ease concerns that he may call for demonstrations that could trigger further violence. “We have now decided to move to the supreme court,” the 72-year-old leader of the National Super Alliance (Nasa) coalition told reporters in the capital, Nairobi. “This is just the beginning, we will not accept and move on.”
The election board said on Friday that Kenyatta had beaten Odinga by 1.4m votes to win a second five-year term.
Odinga claims the election was rigged in favour of Kenyatta through the hacking and manipulation of the electronic vote-counting system. He has not yet provided proof of rigging but promised to do so in court.
The move to the judiciary will relieve Kenyans who feared a repeat of the violence that followed a 2007 vote when Odinga called for protests. Around 1,200 people died in the unrest.
Full Article: Kenyan opposition leader to challenge election result in court | World news | The Guardian.
