\n Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga is expected to unveil his next move Wednesday to contest a presidential poll he claims was rigged in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 72-year-old cried foul shortly after vote counting began in last Tuesday's election, sparking deadly protests in his strongholds that left at least 17 dead and 177 injured.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the unrest has given way to a tense limbo as his supporters wait to hear if their leader will take his grievances to court, as he has been urged to do, or back onto the streets.\n<\/p>\n
\n Initially, his decision was to have been announced on Tuesday, but he pushed it back by a day citing the \"complexity and delicate nature\" of discussions with his allies in the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition.\n<\/p>\n
\n Odinga is expected to outline his strategy in an announcement at 1200 GMT, a party source told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n His vow that \"there is no turning back\" and comments by NASA officials that court is not an option have placed the country on tenterhooks over the likelihood of a protracted vote dispute involving more violence and economic disruption.\n<\/p>\n
\n The international community and many within Kenya have urged Odinga to use legal means to express his grievances.\n<\/p>\n
\n The veteran opposition leader has now lost four elections and cried foul over results in the previous two.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the 2007 vote, Odinga's supporters took to the streets, and a resulting crackdown coupled with a wave of politically motivated tribal violence left over 1,100 dead.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2013 he challenged the presidential results in court and lost.\n<\/p>\n
\n Any legal challenge must be lodged by Friday.\n<\/p>\n
\n - NGO 'vendetta' -\n<\/p>\n
\n A legal petition can also be filed by members of civil society.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two of Kenya's leading rights organisations suggested this might be behind efforts this week to shut them down -- citing tax and registration issues -- but on Wednesday, the government appeared to backpedal on the matter.\n<\/p>\n
\n Interior Minister Fred Matiangi suspended action against the two for 90 days pending an exhaustive review of their status.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) viewed the move against them as highly suspicious at a time when they are weighing legal action over election \"inconsistencies\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Every single thing happening at this moment rotates around the elections... it is all about keeping this election as opaque as possible,\" said Maina Kiai, a board member of both bodies.\n<\/p>\n
\n Civil society members saw in the move yet another attempt by Kenyatta's government to clamp down on their activities.\n<\/p>\n
\n Haron Ndubi, a lawyer for AfriCOG, said Kenyatta had a \"vendetta\" against rights groups who played an active role in seeing him indicted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in the 2007 post-poll violence.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2014 the ICC dropped charges against Kenyatta citing the disappearance of witnesses and lack of evidence.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Police brutality -\n<\/p>\n
\n Speaking this week, Kenyatta said that if Odinga chose not to go to court, he was welcome to protest legally.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Just do it peacefully, orderly... As a government we will not allow loss of life, destruction of property and looting,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n While police deny the use of excessive force, outrage has grown over brutality during the crackdown on protesters.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Tuesday a six-month-old baby succumbed to her injuries following four days in a coma after being clubbed during a police raid on a house during protests on Friday, her father told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n A nine-year-old girl also died after being hit by a stray bullet when police opened fire in a slum.\n<\/p>\n
\n The dispute has plunged Kenya into its worst political crisis since the 2007 post-election violence that laid bare decades-old political and ethnic grievances over access to power and land.\n<\/p>\n
\n Three of Kenya's four presidents -- including Kenyatta and his father -- have come from the Kikuyu ethnic group. The other was Kalenjin.\n<\/p>\n
\n That has left the Luos -- Odinga prominent among them -- and other major ethnic groups feeling excluded from power and marginalised for over half a century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga is expected to unveil his next move Wednesday to contest a presidential poll he claims was rigged in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta. The 72-year-old cried foul shortly after vote counting began in last Tuesday's election, sparking deadly protests in his strongholds that left at least 17 dead and 177 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-34359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n