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Kenya security chief warns against violence in party nominations

Kenya

Kenya’s Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery has warned politicians against stoking violence as chaotic party primaries set the stage for Kenya’s upcoming elections.

Local media showed pictures of angry voters vandalizing polling centers and burning ballots amid complaints that voting had started late in some areas and that some candidates’ names had been left off the ballot.

“I want to caution Kenyans that any person found taking the law into their own hands will be dealt with in accordance with the law. This includes misuse of fire arms by aspirants and their body guards as it has been witnessed in some counties,” Nkaissery said.

Party primaries ahead of Kenya’s general elections in August have been marked by chaotic scenes and poor planning in recent weeks as candidates battle to secure seats to lead the country’s 47 local authorities.

Professor Macharia Munene is a political analyst based in Nairobi; he said party organizers are either incompetent or ill prepared to conduct the exercise

“We have disruptions these are deliberately done. You go and break windows in some offices. These are hired goons and these are the people who have hired them are very corrupt people, and they are the ones who go to any office with a few millions and see whether things will be done their way and if they are not done their way they can be very violent,” he added.

Kenya is still haunted by violence that engulfed the country after a disputed presidential poll in 2007, when more than 1,200 people were killed in widespread ethnic violence.

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