Nairobi: Boosted by the election of their candidate for house speaker, Kenya's embattled opposition was poised to begin three days of mass rallies today to protest an intensely disputed presidential vote they say was rigged in favour of incumbent President Mwai Kibaki.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga called the rallies in 42 locations nationwide, despite a government ban. Similar rallies earlier this month degenerated into violence in the capital, with security forces beating back mobs of angry youth with water cannons and tear gas as homes in the capital's slums burned.

Though braced for violence, Nairobi was calm today morning with a no sign of large crowds gathering and a light rain falling. The western city of Eldoret was also quiet, though protesters there erected several makeshift roadblocks on the outskirts of town. On one, a dead dog was draped over a pile of rocks with a sign that said "Kibaki Death."

"We are going to keep up the pressure from every legal angle and through all peaceful means until the government agrees to acknowledge that the election results were false and that a solution must found to the political crisis," Odinga spokesman Salim Lone told The Associated Press.

"The rallies will show the government that the people of Kenya will not allow the theft of the election to stand." Foreign and local election observers have said the vote count in the December 27 presidential election was deeply flawed. And although the electoral chief pronounced Kibaki the victor, he later said he had been pressured to release the results and did not know who won.

Source : PTI