Kenya police teargas marchers

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Kenyan police used teargas and fired shots in the air as hundreds of demonstrators marched through Nairobi protesting proposed legal changes that would make it harder for the Supreme Court to annul an election.

Reuters television footage showed a sport utility vehicle ploughing into some protesters, injuring three, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible and police made no immediate comment on the incident.

Kenya is due on October 26 to repeat a presidential election after the Supreme Court nullified an August vote due to procedural irregularities. President Uhuru Kenyatta, who won the August election, will face opposition leader Raila Odinga.

As demonstrators marched to the election board offices, a Reuters journalist saw men in plain clothes near security forces fire shots in the air. Mounted police set up blockades to stop protesters accessing some roads.

Police used teargas in Kisumu, Odinga’s stronghold, to disperse protesters, though another demonstration in Mombasa ended peacefully.

Odinga’s opposition alliance is threatening to boycott the October vote unless the electoral board changes some personnel – a stance he declined to clarify, in comments suggesting he was keeping his options open.
“This is a democratic society we live in. If I choose not to participate in the pre-rigged election process, it is my democratic right. No court can order me to do so,” Odinga said in comments broadcast on Kenyan TV stations, without elaborating further.
“DECLARING WAR”

The protesters want to warn ruling party lawmakers not to pass an amendment to the election law that would limit the circumstances in which the Supreme Court could void an election on procedural grounds, opposition lawmaker James Orengo said.
“If parliament passes the law tomorrow, it will be like declaring war on the Kenyan people,” he said.

Justin Muturi, speaker of the National Assembly, said the amendment could be debated when parliament reconvenes if lawmakers are keen to push it forward.

He said the key part of the proposed law stipulates if a candidate boycotts an election whose date has already been set, the remaining candidate would win without formal polls being held.

Government is keen to avoid a constitutional crisis if Odinga pulls out, frustrating the court order to hold elections within 60 days, Muturi said.
“We are trying to prevent a crisis should there be no elections,” he told Reuters.

The government-backed Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said on Monday in a report that at least 37 people were killed in a police crackdown on protests following the August vote – the highest death toll given so far.

The report attributed some deaths to “police using live bullets and a few from police bludgeoning using clubs”. It named a six-month-old baby girl, a seven-year-old boy, and an eight-year-old girl among the victims.