KENYA’S electoral commission chief pledged yesterday to probe opposition allegations that Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential election victory was rigged.

IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said that an audit of Tuesday’s election was the most likely response to Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga’s claims the election database was hacked.

Mr Odinga blamed Mr Kenyatta’s Jubilee party for the hacking, which he said used the identity of IEBC information technology manager Christopher Msando, who was found tortured and murdered last Monday.

“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.

With 95 per cent of polling results declared, Mr Kenyatta had won just over 54 per cent of the vote to almost 45 per cent for Mr Odinga.
Rioting broke out in the south-western city of Kisumu, an ODM stronghold, with protesters mounting street barricades and clashing with police.

And police opened fire on protesters in Kisii, killing one.
While in Nairobi, police chief Japheth Koome said two looters taking advantage of the protests were shot dead.

Mr Odinga lost out to Mwai Kibaki in the 2007 election followed by two months of violence that left around 1,000 dead and 250,000 displaced

Under a power-sharing deal brokered by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, Mr Odinga served as prime minister from 2008 to 2013.

In 2013 Mr Odinga lost out again to Mr Kibaki’s successor Mr Kenyatta — son of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta — who had been indicted by The Hague-based International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the 2007 violence.

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