US Delegation in Kenya Amid Crisis     08/18 06:08

   

   NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A U.S. congressional delegation has arrived in Kenya 
to meet with the new president-elect and the opposition figure likely to file a 
court challenge to his election loss in the latest electoral crisis for East 
Africa's most stable democracy.

   The new U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman, said the delegation led by 
Sen. Chris Coons also will meet with outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, 
who has been publicly silent since the largely peaceful Aug. 9 election.

   President-elect William Ruto is Kenyatta's deputy president, but the two 
fell out years ago, and Kenyatta in the election backed longtime opposition 
figure Raila Odinga instead.

   Odinga has said he is exploring "all constitutional and legal options" to 
challenge his close election loss. His campaign has a week from Monday's 
declaration of Ruto's win to go to the Supreme Court, which then has 14 days to 
rule. Odinga has urged his supporters to remain calm in a country with a 
history of post-election violence.

   Kenya's electoral commission publicly split in chaos just minutes before 
Monday's declaration, with commissioners accusing each other of misconduct. The 
four commissioners who objected to Monday's declaration were appointed by 
Kenyatta last year.

   The split came as a shock to many Kenyans after an election widely seen as 
the country's most transparent ever, with results from the more than 46,000 
polling stations posted online for the public to follow along. Public tallies, 
including one by a local election observer group, added up to a Ruto win with 
just over 50% of the votes.

   The political transition in Kenya will have significant impact on the East 
Africa region, where Kenyatta had been working with the U.S. to try to mediate 
in Ethiopia's Tigray conflict and promoting peace efforts between Rwanda and 
Congo. Ruto in his public comments this week has focused on domestic matters, 
not regional ones.

   Coons, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and his 
delegation have already visited Cape Verde and Mozambique and are expected to 
visit Rwanda, where the Congo tensions and human rights should be on the agenda 
following Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Kigali last week.

   The 55-year-old Ruto appealed to Kenyans by making the election about 
economic differences and not the ethnic ones that have long marked the 
country's politics with sometimes deadly results. He portrayed himself as an 
outsider from humble beginnings defying the political dynasties of Kenyatta and 
Odinga, whose fathers were Kenya's first president and vice president.

   The 77-year-old Odinga has pursued the presidency for a quarter-century. He 
is renowned as a fighter and was detained for years in the 1980s over his push 
for multiparty democracy. He was also a supporter of Kenya's groundbreaking 
2010 constitution.