Kenyan police shot dead two people and wounded a third person on Friday when a crowd of opposition demonstrators attempted to storm a police station, a local official in Kenya’s southwestern Siaya county said. County Commissioner Josephine Onunga said a group of around 20 youths had attempted to take over Bondo police station and that officers had been forced to open fire to repel them.
NAN reports that earlier, police used teargas to disperse protesters in the country’s three main cities. Reuters witnesses said, as a standoff between the government and opposition leaders over a planned repeat presidential election continued. On Thursday, the government banned demonstrations in the central business districts of the capital Nairobi, the coastal city of Mombasa and the western city of Kisumu. The interior minister said demonstrators had damaged and looted property.
A repeat presidential election pitting is scheduled for Oct. 26 after the Supreme Court nullified the result of an August poll in which incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta beat veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, citing irregularities. Odinga withdrew from the race this week, saying the election board had failed to institute reforms to ensure a free and fair election. His opposition alliance called for demonstrations demanding a new election with a new election board instead. The election board has said the polls will go ahead anyway, putting Kenyatta against six other candidates, none of whom polled more than one per cent in the August election. In Kisumu, a stronghold of Odinga support, protesters reacted angrily when police turned water cannon on them to prevent them from entering the city centre. “Our demonstrations have a (valid) basis and are peaceful,” said Odinga supporter Hezron Aloyo. “We condemn the directive … on the limitation of our rights to demonstrate.”
NAN
