New Kenyatta term to open with country bitterly divided

By AFP
Added 26th November 2017 03:59 PM
Protests sparked by the court decision left two dead, the latest casualties in a
four-month period of unrest in which 56 people have died.
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Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn in for a second term as Kenya's president on Tuesday,
the final act of an electoral saga that exposed deep and lasting divisions in the
country.
His inauguration comes ahead after Kenya's Supreme Court last Monday validated his
poll victory, although the country's political crisis is not over.
Protests sparked by the court decision left two dead, the latest casualties in a
four-month period of unrest in which 56 people have died, according to an AFP
tally. Most victims were killed at the hands of police, rights groups say.
The election chaos goes back to an August 8 poll that was annulled in September by
Chief Justice David Maraga over "irregularities and illegalities" -- a decision
hailed across the globe as an opportunity to boost Kenyan democracy.
The most recent violence erupted after Maraga's Supreme Court dismissed two
petitions seeking to overturn 56-year-old Kenyatta's victory in the election re-run
on October 26.
Kenyatta's rival Raila Odinga boycotted the vote saying the electoral commission
had not made fundamental reforms to make the contest fair. Kenyatta went on to
receive 98 percent of the vote -- but on turnout of only 39 percent.
The decision to validate the October result now leaves the country deeply split --
even if violence has not reached the scale of that which followed a 2007 poll when
1,100 were killed.