Kenya on a knife edge
Raila Odinga’s strategy to force a postponement of the presidential election appears to have backfired. But with no legal certainty about the October 26 election, trouble may be brewing
The Kenyan game of chess is still on, and Raila Odinga has no intention of shying away from the big moves he has been making since the beginning of the country’s election process. After successfully petitioning Kenya’s supreme court to annul the August presidential election result, the opposition leader announced last week that he was dropping out of the rerun. Odinga in no way intended to abandon the race. Rather, he had hoped to force a cancellation of the vote and a reshuffle of the officials at the electoral commission before fresh elections could be held. Yet the 72-year-old politician may have unwittingly checkmated himself out of the race. Odinga’s decision to pull out was made in protest against the Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which he has repeatedly accused of bias and of being unable to conduct free and fair elections. In its recent petition to the supreme court, Odinga’s coalition presented evidence of irregularities such as forged electoral form...
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