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Kenya opposition protest fails to start
Plans for a second day of anti-government protests in Nairobi appeared to falter on Friday with no sign of opposition marches on the city centre.
- Agencies
- Published: 11:03 January 4, 2008
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Nairobi: Plans for a second day of anti-government protests in Nairobi appeared to falter on Friday with no sign of opposition marches on the city centre.
"We're tired, we're not going to march," said Samuel Muhati, a resident of the Mathare slum, where thousands of protesters battled police on Thursday. "Let the fighting stop."
Opposition leaders had not arrived at their Pentagon House headquarters by 10 am, the scheduled start time for a protest in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, a witness said.
Kenya's opposition group has planned a massive rally on Friday in protest of President Mwai Kibaki's re-election.
The call for a rally comes one day after the nation's attorney general called for a recount and an independent investigations into the country's disputed election.
At least 300 people have been killed in post-election violence, the government said. On Thursday, police blocked an opposition march with tear gar and water cannons.
Reports of violence, looting and fires were sporadic in Nairobi's sprawling slums, including Kibera, from which residents had left en masse to Uhuru Park.
"The level and nature of the violent protest … is quickly degenerating into a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions," said Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako.
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Opposition leader Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement called it "genocide on a grand scale."
Kibaki narrowly won re-election with 51.3 per cent of the vote, while Odinga garnered 48.7 per cent, the country's election commission announced on Sunday.
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