Police in full riot gear are being overwhelmed in Kenya as an angry electorate protests a rigged election. Rigging has being part and parcel of Kenyan elections since 1963 when the first government was selected but this time Kenyans really hoped for change.
There is now fear of a full scale ethnic bloodletting as the poor from Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum have poured into the streets in anger. Updated
The police have SHOOT TO KILL orders in Odinga hotbed Kisumu where rioters are under dawn to dusk curfew as Kikuyu businesses and homes have been burned to the ground.
Already , the Vice-President, and 20 other ministers had being shown the door in the parliamentary election and the President was trailing badly when questionable results from the Presidents Central Province stronghold including some where more votes than voters appeared allowed him to squeak by at the last minute leading to cries of rigging.
Kenya is now on the brink of civil war as marauding gangs are setting up roadblocks and demanding ID and if you are from the wrong side -its Hutu versus Tutsi all over again except its in Kenya , the oasis of peace in an unstable Horn of Africa.
Western observers have agreed that some tallies for the President were inflated between the time they were taken at polling stations and the official count in Nairobi and the people are incensed. There is major looting and burning of businesses all over Kenya as the government has banned all gatherings , Live Radio and TV broadcasts , and newspaper reports including foreign reporters who were marched out of Election HQ's at gunpoint.
The US government has already congratulated the President on his victory , not taking a cue from the British Foreign Secretary who hedged by saying Britain would welcome a "legitimately elected government" .This story is developing.