Opposition wins Kenya vote

VETERAN politician Mwai Kibaki and his opposition alliance won a landslide victory in Kenyan elections, breaking the ruling party’s 39-year grip on power, results showed yesterday.

With nearly all ballots counted from Friday's election, Uhuru Kenyatta, the handpicked successor of outgoing President Daniel arap Moi, conceded defeat. Kibaki, a 71-year-old economist, garnered 62% of the vote while Kenyatta received 29%, according to figures from the Institute for Education in Democracy.

A government-appointed electoral commission was expected to release final results late last night "The Kenyan people have now spoken, and it is with great joy and humility that we accept their trust," said Raila Odinga, a leader of Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition, which also made large gains in concurrent parliamentary elections. The Kenya African National Union, or KANU has ruled the East African nation since independence from Britain in 1963.

The international donor-funded institute, which is part of an umbrella of Kenya organisations monitoring the election, said turnout was 56%. Some 10.5 million Kenyans had registered to vote for president, 210 members of parliament and 2,104 local councilors at 18,366 polling stations around the country.

The opposition alliance, dubbed the NARC, captured at least 116 seats in parliament of the 174 races so far counted enough for a majority. The ruling party, KANU, has 42 and smaller parties took the rest. Results were still being tallied for the remaining seats. Parliament has 210 seats.

Kenyatta of KANU was hand-picked by President Daniel arap Moi, who ruled Kenya for 24 years and is constitutionally obliged to step down at the end of his current five-year term.

Kibaki, who has been a leading opposition figure since multi-party politics were reintroduced in 1991, was Moi's vice-president from 1978 to 1988. A London School of Economics graduate, Kibaki was also Kenya's longest-serving finance minister from 1969 to 1982 during a period of relative prosperity.

Running among a handful of other opposition candidates in the 1997 elections, Kibaki placed second to Moi.

During campaigning, Kibaki pledged to revive the country's ailing economy and fight rampant corruption. He also promised free primary education in the nation of 30 million people.