Kenya’s opposition declares its presidential candidate the winner, but official tally shows otherwise

Kenya’s main opposition coalition claimed victory Thursday in a contentious presidential election and demanded that its candidate, Raila Odinga, be declared the winner, rejecting the official tally that shows him trailing badly.

Odinga was behind by more than 1.4 million votes, according to provisional results released by the country’s election commission with 97 per cent of polling stations reporting. But the opposition professed to have obtained internal commission figures showing that its candidate had defeated the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta.

There were reports of celebrations in some opposition strongholds. But if Kenyatta is declared the winner, it risks igniting tense protests among Odinga’s supporters in Nairobi’s volatile slum districts and in western parts of the country.

As Kenya faces the prospect of another disputed election, there were fears of a reprise of the ethnic violence that killed an estimated 1,500 people after a similar dispute in 2007.

Sporadic clashes have erupted between police and opposition supporters since Odinga told his followers Wednesday that hackers had manipulated data in the election commission’s computer system.