Kenya Burns as Re-Elected Leader Sworn In
Opposition refuses to accept result, claiming widespread fraud.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec. 30, 2007— -- As Kenya's incumbent president Mwai Kibaki was being sworn in less than an hour after being declared the winner of the country's bitterly disputed presidential election, plumes of black smoke billowed up from blazes ignited by protesters rioting in the capital.
The swearing in comes after three days of increasing rioting and violence as the country impatiently awaited the results of the election, which opposition leaders say were marred by fraud.
During his swearing in Kibaki urged calm.
"I ask all of us ... to embrace a new spirit of national unity, to respect the people's choice and maintain peace and unity," he said.
His challenger, opposition leader Raila Odinga, said he would not accept results announced today and accused Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) of rigging the election.
"This is a side of him that Kenyans will remember forever," Odinga said as he left the electoral commission media briefing, just before the results were announced.
"Kenyans will not accept these results. No force will stop them, like the River Nile cannot be stopped, it will flow into the Mediterranean Sea," he said.
Odinga's party, the Orange Democratic Movement, held press conferences all day accusing the government of stuffing ballots and changing vote tallies.
Several constituencies that are considered Kibaki strongholds did not report any results at all until at least two days after the election, and ODM members said those results had been doctored to give Kibaki enough votes for a victory.
Odinga is calling for a complete nationwide re-count after ODM election officials detected irregularities in 48 of Kenya's 210 provinces. Last night, the Election Commission of Kenya (ECK) met with representatives of ODM and PNU to conduct an informal audit of the election results so far.
Members of the ODM said the results announced by ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu do not match the original election results that local officials signed off on.
They claimed that votes were added to the final tallies and called for the commission to provide documentation showing how it arrived at the final results that were announced today.
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