Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in yesterday for a second term as police fired tear gas to disperse angry opposition supporters, in what many hope is the closing act of a gruelling and divisive election drama.
The pomp and ceremony ended with a 21-gun salute, but was overshadowed by chaos in another part of Nairobi, where police engaged in running battles with opposition supporters trying to gather for a rally.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga was meant to attend the “memorial rally” to honor more than 50 people killed, mostly by police, in four months of political upheaval.
Photo: AFP
However, police kept the planned venue strictly sealed off.
Chaos also marked the start of the swearing-in ceremony at the 60,000-seat Kasarani stadium, as Kenyatta supporters attempted to force their way into the venue, prompting police to fire tear gas while officers on horseback struggled to curb the flow of people.
“I just want to see President Uhuru Kenyatta because I voted for him, why are we being beaten like NASA [the opposition coalition]?” asked Janet Wambua, who was among the angry crowd.
Joseph Irungu of the interior ministry planning committee had said there was space for 40,000 people who did not get in to watch the event on big screens outside the stadium.
However, no such screens were provided, further angering the crowd.
Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, took the oaths of office in front of 13 mostly African heads of state, including from South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and Somalia.
Prime ministers, foreign ministers and special envoys represented other African nations, as well as Qatar, Serbia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.
The inauguration came after the Supreme Court validated Kenyatta’s victory in last month’s rerun poll.
However, analysts say the swearing-in might not draw a line under the country’s political crisis, for Odinga has vowed to fight on.
The NASA coalition described yesterday’s inauguration as a “despotic coronation.”
The electoral strife goes back to an Aug. 8 poll that was annulled in September by the Supreme Court, citing “irregularities and illegalities.”
The court ordered a rerun last month that was boycotted by the opposition, handing Kenyatta a landslide of 98 percent of votes cast by just 39 percent of the electorate.
The disputed election season has split the nation along ethnic and regional lines.
However, political violence has not reached the scale of the bloody aftermath of elections in 2007, when 1,100 were killed.
Odinga finds himself denied the presidency for a fourth time in his long career.
He contends he was cheated and refuses to recognize the result.
He has vowed to found a “third republic” — following independence from Britain in 1963 and a new constitution adopted in 2010 — and pursue protests and economic boycotts aimed at undermining Kenyatta’s “dictatorship.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS