KENYA’S election has taken an ominous turn after opposition leader Raila Odinga alleged fraud, saying hackers used the identity of a murdered official to infiltrate the database of the country’s election commission and manipulate results.
Soon after Odinga spoke on television, witnesses said angry protesters in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu in the south-west burned tyres, set up roadblocks and clashed with police.
Kenyan police opened fire on people protesting over the election results in another opposition stronghold, killing one person in South Mugirango constituency in Kisii county.
With results from almost all of the polling stations counted, President Uhuru Kenyatta was shown with a wide lead over Odinga in his bid for a second term.
Many parts of Kenya, East Africa’s commercial hub, were calm a day after the elections for president and more than 1800 other posts down to the county level.
But the violence stirred memories of the unrest following the 2007 vote in which more than 1000 people were killed.
Odinga lost that election; he also lost the 2013 vote to Kenyatta and took allegations of vote-tampering to the Supreme Court, which rejected his case.
Odinga, a former prime minister, blamed Kenyatta’s party for the alleged hacking of the election database.
“The fraud Jubilee has perpetuated on Kenyans surpasses any level of voter theft in our country’s history. This time we caught them,” he tweeted.
Odinga claimed that hackers used the identity of Christopher Msando, an election official in charge of managing information technology systems.
On July 31, officials announced that Msando had been tortured and killed, alarming Kenyans who feared a recurrence of political violence that has been fuelled by ethnic divisions. Msando had sought to reassure voters that election results would not be tampered with.
Rafael Tuju, a top official in Kenyatta’s party, said the opposition’s claims were unfounded.
Kenya’s election commission said it will investigate Odinga’s allegations.
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