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Saturday, January 3, 1998 Published at 18:41 GMT



Despatches
image: [ BBC Correspondent: Cathy Jenkins ]Cathy Jenkins
Nairobi

The Electoral Commission in Kenya has said that President Moi has won enough votes in Presidential elections to be returned to office. The final counting is still going on, but the Commission has said that no other candidate has a chance of over-taking him. Two days of polling in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were marked by chaos, but three Kenyan observer groups have said that the polling, whilst flawed, produced results which represented the will of the voters. From Nairobi, our east Africa correspondent, Cathy Jenkins, reports.

The official announcement is still awaited, but Kenya's Electoral Commission has said that President Moi has won enough votes for another term in office. The Chairman of the Commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said that President Moi had won both a majority of the votes and had gained the required 25% in five of Kenya's eight provinces.

He said it was impossible for anyone else to over-take him. The Commission says it can't formally announce the result, because counting in a number of places is still going on.

The confusion surrounding the ballot has been exacerbated by bad weather, which has rendered some areas inaccessible. In Nairobi, there was tension as supporters of the ruling party, Kanu, and the opposition Democratic party, waited for the results of the Parliamentary ballot in one of the largest constituencies in the country.

Lines of paramilitary police kept the two groups of supporters well apart. The Kanu supporters, hearing their candidate had won, set off on a victory run through the capital.

Earlier, three Kenyan observer groups said that Kenyans should accept the results of the elections. They said that, although the elections were flawed and that the playing field before the polling day was not level, the results reflected the wishes of the people.

The observers, who included prominent church leaders, declined to say whether the elections could be called free and fair, but they said that, in most cases, the large number of poeple who turned out were, despite everything, able to cast their vote.





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