Kenyan President Sworn In
30 December 2007 Time (excerpts from Time 31 Dec 07)
President Kibaki was sworn today in a hasty ceremony attended by party
loyalists, less than an hour after the electoral Commission of Kenya
pronounced he had beaten Odinga, by just 230,000 votes. (Odinga had led
most pre-election polls in the weeks leading up to the election.)
Kibaki's first act in office was to ban live television and radio
broadcasts. The vote last 27 Dec 2007 was initially portrayed as a
success. But the mood soured as the counting went on. And when Odinga
jumped to a lead of nearly 1 million votes, results were delayed from
several of Kibaki's strongholds. Election officials either disappeared
with ballot boxes or refused to answer their phones when the final
result was announced. That prompted several observer groups to scrap
assessments that the vote was free and fair. The European Union said it
had evidence that the vote may have been rigged. On 31 Dec, the U.S.,
whose State Department at first congratulated Kibaki on his victory,
issued a statement saying it was concerned by "serious problems
experienced during the vote counting process." "These included various
anomalies with respect to unrealistically high voter turnout rates,
close to 100% in some polling places
Opposition supporters march at the entrance to the Mathare slum in Nairobi