Call for new poll to settle dispute

Nairobi, Kenya: Kenya's opposition party called for a new presidential election to settle a dispute over the vote that has sparked days of deadly riots, and police hurled tear gas to scatter more than 1,000 protesters in the coastal city of Mombasa on Friday.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the government of President Mwai Kibaki would hold a re-election if a court ordered it. Asked if the constitution allowed such a thing, he said: "I doubt it." South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu held talks with Kibaki yesterday and opposition leader Raila Odinga on Thursday, and said both "indicated they are open to the possibilities of negotiations".

"There is a great deal of hope," Tutu added.

International observers say ballot counting after the December 27 vote that returned Kibaki to power was flawed. The US and Europe were among those pushing for Kibaki and Odinga to work together to bring calm in the wake of their political dispute, and said a "made-in-Kenya solution" is needed to end the violence that has killed 300 people and displaced 100,000 in what was once lauded as among the most stable democracies in Africa.

Scattered

The upheaval has spread from the capital to the coast and the western highlands. In Mombasa, a city heavily dependent on tourism, police scattered 1,500 protesters who were shouting "Kibaki has stolen our vote!" and "No Raila no peace!" There were no immediate reports of injuries.

In Nairobi, Odinga supporters vowed that street protests that shook Nairobi a day earlier would continue, but by midday there were no signs of a mass protest brewing.

Anyang Nyongo, secretary-general of Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, said the country should ready "for a new election of the president."

"This is about a democracy and justice," Nyongo said.

"We shall continue to defend and promote the right of Kenyans so the democratic process should be fulfilled." Salim Lone, a spokesman for Odinga, said.

Odinga had called for a million people to gather in a park in the city centre on Thursday, but postponed that until yesterday after protesters were pushed back by police with tear gas and water cannons.

Yesterday in Kibera, the country's largest slum, shops remained shut and small groups of protesters gathered on street corners.

"Let people die and then there will be a change," said Joshua Okoth, standing with a group of young men by the smoking remains of a Kibera food market.

Ruth Otieno, who lives in Nairobi's Mathare slum, said about 60 houses were burned down in Mathare overnight, displacing scores of families.

The violent images are heartbreakingly common in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan, but until now not in Kenya.