As the death toll rose to 260, EU monitors yesterday cast doubts on the results of Kenya’s disputed presidential vote.
This stepped up the pressure on re-elected President Mwai Kibaki.
A second consecutive night of conflict and clashes between police and mainly unemployed youth had left more than 70 dead, as post-election unrest plunged the country into an unprecedented crisis.
Imperialist leaders called on Kenya’s rival leaders to open a dialogue.
But opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who was narrowly defeated in the December 27 poll by Kibaki, said he would only talk when the president admitted vote-rigging.
Odinga said: ‘The conditions under which we are prepared to negotiate is that Kibaki must first accept that he did not win the elections.’
His election fraud allegations were lent extra weight by the EU election monitoring team which issued a report yesterday saying the vote had ‘fallen short’ of international standards and called for an independent audit into the results.
The EU monitors’ report said that the polls were ‘marred by a lack of transparency in the processing and tallying of presidential results, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the final results’.
EU observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told reporters: ‘We believe it is vital that an impartial investigation into the accuracy of the presidential results is conducted.’
The prime minister of the former colonial power Britain, Gordon Brown joined international calls for calm.
After speaking by telephone to both Kibaki and Odinga, the UK premier commented: ‘What I want to see is them coming together, I want to see talks and I want to see reconciliation and unity.’
Washington had initially congratulated Kibaki on his re-election but the US State Department on Monday withdrew its endorsement.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said: ‘I’m not offering congratulations to anybody.’
Clashes were reported by police and witnesses overnight Monday in most Nairobi poor working class areas as well as in several of Odinga’s strongholds in western Kenya.
The city of Kisumu, northwest of Nairobi, appeared to be the worst affected, with a mortuary attendant reporting that 48 bodies were brought in overnight.
Youth had burned down shops and taken everything from refrigerators to basic goods.
Kibaki, who was sworn in less than an hour after the electoral commission declared him the winner on Sunday, has vowed to clamp down on the unrest.
Odinga has rejected Kibaki’s victory as a civilian coup and urged his supporters to turn out for an alternative swearing-in ceremony at a rally in Nairobi on tomorrow.
The government has banned the event and threatened Odinga with arrest if it goes ahead.
