Odinga threaten to boycott Kenya election re-run

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Tuesday his coalition would not participate in the re-run of a presidential election proposed for Oct. 17 unless it is given “legal and constitutional” guarantees.

Odinga‘s conditions include the removal of some officials at the election board. He wants criminal investigations to be opened against them.

“You cannot do a mistake twice and expect to get different results,” Odinga told reporters.

Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered on Friday that the Aug. 8 vote be re-run within 60 days, saying President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory by 1.4 million votes was undermined by irregularities in the process. Kenyatta was not accused of any wrongdoing.

On Monday, the election board said it would hold new elections on Oct. 17.

But Odinga said he wanted elections held on Oct. 24 or 31 instead.

“There will be no elections on the seventeenth of October until the conditions that we have spelt out in the statement are met,” he said.

Odinga has contested and lost the last three presidential elections in Kenya. Each time, he has said the vote was rigged against him.

(REUTERS)