Kenyan lawmaker shot dead in apparent assassination in Nairobi

A Kenyan opposition legislator was shot dead in the capital Nairobi in what police have described as a “targeted and premeditated” crime.

MP Charles Were was shot on Wednesday night after his car stopped at a roundabout on a busy major road.

President William Ruto urged police to conduct a “thorough investigation” and said Thursday that those responsible “must be held to account.”

He was in the company of his driver and bodyguard when a motorcycle taxi approached their car, and a passenger disembarked and approached their car before firing at the MP, police said in a statement.

The legislator was reelected in 2022 to represent Kasipul constituency in western Kenya for the Orange Democratic Movement party.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga described Were as a “gallant son of the soil.”

Odinga was President Ruto’s main challenger in the 2022 general election.

Political tensions in Kenya have simmed down since last year, when the country saw a series of opposition-backed anti-government protests during which dozens of people died. Ruto later appointed members of Odinga’s party to the cabinet, and the two leaders signed a political pact in March this year.