Post date: Mar 09, 2013 5:11:38 PM
There are skirmishes in defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga's heartland after the country's official election result is announced.
KISUMU, KENYA (MARCH 9, 2013) (REUTERS) - Skirmishes broke out in Kisumu, the heartland of defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga, after Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of Kenya's presidential vote on Saturday (March 9).
Odinga said he would challenge the outcome in court and asked supporters to avoid violence.Kisumu, the biggest city in Odinga's tribal heartland, was calm earlier on Saturday but supporters took to the streets to protest the election result, and some residents fled the city.
Police walked through the street with batons making residents remove road blocks and extinguish fires.
One resident was dissatisfied with the election result.
"They need to bring what is called justice in Kenya, there is no justice in Kenya, that is what we are requiring," he said..
Kenyan police in riot gear had fired teargas to disperse crowds, a Reuters witness reported, in the city that was one of the flashpoints for tribal violence after the disputed 2007 vote that Odinga also lost.
Kenyatta, Kenya's richest man and son of Kenya's founding president, faces trial after the disputed 2007 presidential vote that unleashed a wave of tribal killings. His win avoided what could have been a divisive a run-off pencilled in for April.
With 51-year-old Kenyatta in the top job, Kenya will become the second African country after Sudan to have a sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court.
The United States and other Western powers, big donors to the east African nation, said before the vote that a Kenyatta win would complicate diplomatic ties with a nation viewed as a vital ally in the regional battle against militant Islam.
Kenyatta said in his acceptance speech that he and his team would cooperate with international institutions and that he expected the international community to respect Kenya's sovereignty.