Long lines in Kenya for vote on new constitution; police on high alert after 2007-08 killings

Kenya sees big turnout in vote on new constitution

TIMBOROA, Kenya — Enthusiastic voters, many wrapped in colorful traditional blankets, waited for hours Wednesday to cast ballots on a new constitution that could spell a new era for Kenya — curtailing the president’s enormous powers and giving citizens a bill of rights.

With memories fresh of the ethnically charged violence that left more than 1,000 people dead following the disputed 2007 election, police were deployed en masse across the country.

Voters overwhelmed polling stations in some locations, and one Nairobi site saw dozens of Kenyans who had not yet voted force their way in after authorities tried to shut it down at the official 5 p.m. closing time.

Despite that after-hours push, officials reported few problems and no violence countrywide.

Enthusiasm for the new constitution appeared high. In the Nairobi slum of Kibera, lines formed as early as 3 a.m., while voters at some Rift Valley sites waited five hours or more.

“Since we got independence from Britain our country has not run smoothly. The current constitution has not been used well, but we didn’t write that one, and we are writing this one,” declared Paul Wahome, a 23-year-old student who waited six hours to vote in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru.

Returns from about 30 percent of the polling stations showed the “yes” camp taking an early lead: About 64 percent of the votes cast, compared to 36 percent for the “no” camp, according to Kenya’s election commissioner Ahmed Issack Hassan.

Pre-vote polls had showed the referendum would likely pass, and Associated Press reporters had difficulty finding Kenyans who said they voted against it.

“It’s a struggle between the haves and the have-nots in this country, and the haves are trying to maintain the status quo,” said James Otumba, a 43-year-old teacher who was shot in the chest during the 2007-08 violence.

“This is a revolution taking place in this country … This constitution is one thing that can actually reconcile the nation,” he said.

The international community, and particularly the U.S., has urged Kenyans to pass the constitution, even as the draft raised emotions over land rights, abortion and Muslim family courts. Kenya’s current constitution, drawn up in the lead-up to Kenya’s 1963 independence from Britain, grants the president sweeping powers.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Wednesday the Obama administration was gratified that a large number of Kenyans voted and that the vote was generally peaceful.

“This is an important step toward strengthening democratic institutions in Kenya,” Crowley said.

If passed, the new constitution will dramatically cut back the president’s powers by setting up an American-style system of checks and balances and paving the way for much-needed land reform. Kenyan presidents have long favored their own ethnic tribes in the distribution of resources, a tremendous source of tension here.

This time around, the government changed voting procedures to avoid the charges of fraud that sullied the 2007 vote. Preliminary ballot results, for instance, were sent in to Nairobi by cell phones, and the tallying center was moved to a more isolated location to better control who has access to it.

The referendum was one of the conditions of the power-sharing agreement between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minster Raila Odinga that ended the 2007-08 violence. Both back the new constitution, and both appealed to Kenyans to vote peacefully.

“From the reports I have received, it is peaceful all over the country and we want this to remain that way so that Kenyans can peacefully decide their future,” Odinga said after casting his ballot in Kibera, where excited crowds pushed to get close to him.

“I have no doubt in my mind that the ‘yes’ will win resoundingly,” he said.

The “no” camp is backed by most of Kenya’s church community, which objects to a clause that says abortion is permitted if the life or health of the mother is in danger according to the opinion of a “trained health professional.” The draft also has stirred emotions over publicly funded family courts for Muslims.

“Some in the ‘yes’ camp are against our Christianity,” said Susan Chevet, a beautician who voted “no” because of the abortion clause.

Still, a leader of the “no” camp, Higher Education Minister William Ruto, told the AP his side would respect the outcome. Stories about tension and violence are “the work of the prophets of doom,” he said.

The head of Kenya’s electoral commission said vote tallying will be more transparent than during the last election, when claims of vote-rigging led to violence. The count will be broadcast live on TV and radio. Results were expected as early as Thursday.

Despite the optimism, an ethnic dispute in the Rift Valley town of Timboroa showed the two dominant tribes there — the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu — still harbor strong emotions that could come to a boil.

The episode late last week involved a Kalenjin herdsman, who attacked two Kikuyu women while they were collecting firewood in the forest.

One of the victims, 67-year-old Lucy Muthoni quoted the herdsman as saying: “Why are you people still here, why are you still bothering us?”

The herdsman hit Muthoni’s friend, Grace Muthoni Maititu, with a club and a machete, splitting open her head and knocking her unconscious.

After reporting the attack to police, authorities addressed the elders of the Kalenjin community, who summoned all the herdsmen. The women picked out their attacker from a lineup, and police arrested him.

The incident prompted some Kikuyus in Timboroa to lock up their forest homes and move into town for the election. One man, refusing to give his name to a reporter, said only: “I’m afraid, I’m afraid.”

Jacob Ngehia, a local government official, said some of the animosity stems from the 2007-08 violence, because court cases are being carried out and witnesses are being threatened.

“It’s not over, it is a cease-fire. The root causes have not yet been addressed,” Ngehia said. “We must stop the cycle of revenge.”

During the 2007-08 violence, tribesmen used bows and arrows to fight each other, gangs hacked opponents to death and police were accused of shooting sprees.

With more than 63,000 police officers deployed to secure Wednesday’s vote, many Kenyans expected the referendum to be peaceful. But many worry about clashes during the next presidential election in 2012 or a violent backlash if the International Criminal Court in the Hague charges leading politicians for the 2007-08 violence.

Odula reported from Nairobi. Associated Press Writers Tom Maliti and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi and Foster Klug in Washington contributed to this report.