Accusations of vote-rigging, misdirection of ballot papers and floods plagued yesterday's general elections in Kenya. After three people, including a four-month-old baby, were killed in violence in the west of the country, tempers became frayed at a number of polling stations yesterday as voters confronted election officials over delays in the process. Ballot papers were delivered late, to wrong locations and, in some cases, not at all.
Ms Charity Ngilu, the only female challenger to President Daniel arap Moi, charged his Kanu party with vote-rigging and said she would challenge the result if he wins. This charismatic middle-aged businesswoman is set to have a fight on her hands; the Big Man, who has already served 19 years in office, is widely expected to be reelected.
With her backers bringing up the rear, Ms Ngilu stormed electoral offices in central Kitui district yesterday and took about 1,000 voter cards. They then drove off with the police in hot pursuit. She alleged the cards, which voters show before voting, were bought by Kanu to add votes to its side.
In areas of the north-east, floods cancelled polling and voters had to paddle boats to neighbouring stations. A radical Islamic preacher and opposition politician, Sheikh Khalid Balala, was arrested in the coastal city of Mombasa shortly before voting started.
The firebrand cleric, who returned to Kenya from exile in Germany earlier this year, had pledged to disrupt the polls, saying they had been rigged by the Moi regime.
"We are winning," said Mr Moi, who voted near his rural home in central Kenya. The 73year-old autocrat, who only reluctantly agreed to multi-party democracy in 1991, had to be reminded to cast a ballot for his parliamentary seat.
"There is no chance for Moi to win this election even though they [Kanu] are going to attempt some rigging in some places," bragged a former vice-president, Mr Mwai Kibaki, who is running a distant second to Mr Moi in a recent opinion poll.
Vote-buying was commonly practised by Kanu during the campaign and it continued yesterday. "I will not vote until my stomach has been serviced," declared one man waiting for a financial inducement in Kisii in the south-west.
People had to wait two or three hours under a hot sun to cast their votes in some constituencies. The frustration was sometimes too much. At a primary school in one suburb of Nairobi, police struggled to control crowds who shouted angrily when the wrong ballot papers were delivered.
However, in most places people waited in long, patient lines. At polling stations in Kajiado in the central Rift Valley, hundreds of brightly-dressed Masai tribes people queued against a technicolour backdrop of rolling green hills and purple bougainvillea. Most of them were illiterate and had to be helped by election agents to put their mark beside their presidential and parliamentary choices.
Mr Sintato Ole Senja, a Masai father of 28 children by four wives, arrived at Kajiado Township Primary School after a six mile walk through the bush. He said he would vote for Mr Moi even though the price of food was higher than he would like.
"We know only Moi," said the cattle farmer with his red Masai blanket draped over his shoulder. "No one from the opposition came here to talk to us before the elections."
The Rift Valley is traditionally a Kanu stronghold; the Masai, a minority tribe, are considered allies of the president's small Kalenjin tribe. An hour and a half's drive away in Machakos in Eastern Province, however, the inhabitants belong to the Kamba tribe and are mostly opposition supporters. The townspeople are strongly behind Ms Ngilu, who has vowed to overthrow Mr Moi and sell off his presidential jet.
"The government has failed us and I want a total change," said a 41-year-old cabinetmaker. "There's too much corruption and health and education are in a terrible state."
Mr Moi, who entered politics as a member of Britain's colonial Legislative Council in 1955, won more than a third of the total vote in the last 1992 elections. To avoid a second-round run-off he must finish in first place nationally and get a quarter of the vote in at least five of Kenya's eight provinces. The Electoral Commission has declared that in areas affected by flooding and logistical problems, voting will be resumed today. Results are due by the end of the week.