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Kenya election rerun: As it happens | Kenya News

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12:45pm local time, October 26, 2017 

UN warns staff to stay away from some areas of Nairobi

  • The UN has sent a SMS alert to its staff in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to avoid the Huruma Road, Mathare and Kawangare areas.

  • The warning is in response to reports of clashes between youths and security forces. 

12:30pm local time, October 26, 2017 

Poll delays

  • Polls were due to open at 6am but as the Reuters deputy bureau chief in East Africa, Maggie Fick, points out, there were delays lasting hours in Kisumu. 

11:45am local time, October 26, 2017 

Why are people boycotting the vote?

  • Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller speaks to one woman, an Odinga supporter, who sets out her reasons for not voting today. 

    Kenya election rerun: Ballot legitimacy into question

11am local time, October 26, 2017 

Clashes in Kisumu

  • Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi says clashes have broken out between groups of men and police in the western city of Kisumu.

  • Police used teargas against the protesters and the men used slingshots to hurl stones in the other direction.

  • Elsewhere, President Kenyatta has voted in his home constituency of Gatundu, where he told supporters it was “time to move forward and choose leaders”.

10am local time, October 26, 2017 

Low turnout

  • Are Odinga supporters heeding his call for a boycott or are Kenyans tired of another election? We won’t know until the electoral commission announces the turnout but Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed describes scenes of polling officials eating sandwiches and sipping on tea, as police officers outnumber voters outside polling stations.

  • One official told Mohamed that turnout was not as high as the August 8 poll. 
    Officials at a polling station in Kibera [Hamza Mohamed/Al Jazeera] 

9am local time, October 26, 2017 

Potential for violence

  • The disputed August election gave way to violence between supporters of the rival candidates and security forces, and as Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi in Kisumu reports, tensions are still running high.

8am local time, October 26, 2017 

Odinga still on ballot sheet

  • Raila Odinga may have called for a boycott, but his name is still on ballot sheets seen by Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed in Nairobi.

  • A total of eight candidates are on the ballot but none other that Odinga and incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta broke through one percent  

7am local time, October 26, 2017 

‘Very smooth’

  • Elastus Mains, a 40-year-old businessman has just voted, he tells Al Jazeera that he’s happy with the way things are going: “I queued up from 5am. It took me less than five minutes to vote. Very smooth. I’m happy with how it is going. I’m voting again because it is my democratic right. I never boycotted an election and will not do that now.”

  • HR manager Esther Muhindi, tells Al Jazeera that she hopes there are no further reruns of the vote: “I voted because the court told us to. I hope there is no more repeats. This time the queues were moving fast.” 

6am local time, October 26, 2017 

Polls open

  • Polls have opened and more than 19 million Kenyans will have the opportunity to cast a vote. 

  • How many of those choose to exercise that right is another matter as opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who received 45 percent of the vote in the August election has called for a boycott.

  •  The 72-year-old Odinga said opposition demands to reform the electoral body following the court ruling have not been met.

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