KAREN: One of Kenya's top two presidential rivals accused the electoral commission on Saturday of disadvantaging him by "design or omission" in Monday's vote, a poll intended to reassert the rule of law after savage post-election tribal fighting in 2007.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga, locked in a tight race against Uhuru Kenyatta, told Reuters he was still confident of a first-round victory, but his comments hint at legal wrangles and tension if the result is as close as surveys suggest.
More than 1,200 people died in ethnic violence in 2007 after Odinga disputed the victory of incumbent president Mwai Kibaki.
Speaking on the last day of campaigning, Odinga said the election committee had failed to register all voters in his core constituencies but not in areas viewed as heartlands of Kenyatta's.
But he said that, unlike in 2007, he had confidence in a reformed judiciary to adjudicate.
If he sought to raise a challenge, Odinga said, "we will go to court and we will urge our people to be calm and peaceful and await the outcome of the petition".
For years seen as one of Africa's most stable democracies, east Africa's biggest economy is being watched by African and Western donors and investors to see if can now hold a vote where disputes are played out in court, not on the streets.
Although the new Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, which denies any bias, is widely seen as much more impartial than its predecessor, and reforms have made the judiciary less political, many ordinary Kenyans are preparing for the possibility of violence.
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