Kenyan police prepare for protests ahead of election announcement

TIL Desk/World/Kisumu/ Kenyan police took security precautions on Friday ahead of an expected announcement that President Uhuru Kenyatta has won re-election despite allegations of vote rigging by opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Police stationed extra forces at the airport in the western city of Kisumu in a bid to forestall any protests. The city is in a province that is Odinga’s stronghold.

“We are securing the airport so people can get in and out,” Kisumu County police commissioner Joseph Keitany told. “We are only putting vehicles in certain areas we deem to be hotspots.”

The election commission may announce a winner from Tuesday’s vote on Friday afternoon. Provisional results have shown the 55-year-old Kenyatta, vying for a second and final five-year term, with a 1.5 million vote lead.

Veteran opposition leader Odinga, 71, says results posted online by the election commission are false. His party declared him the winner on Thursday, based on a secret source within the election commission they declined to identify.

The dispute has raised fears among Kenyans of ethnic and political clashes of the kind triggered by a presidential election in 2007, when 1,200 people were killed. Kenya is the leading economy in East Africa and stability would be likely to ripple through the region.