Incumbent Declared Winner in Kenya's Disputed Election

With results Friday showing that most of Kibaki's cabinet, including his vice president, had been swept from power, there was a growing expectation that Odinga would win, which would have marked the first time a Kenyan president had been ousted.

Particularly among his own ethnic group, the Luo, there has been a sense of destiny surrounding Odinga, a former political prisoner widely viewed as a champion of multiparty democracy whose father was a key figure in Kenya's independence movement.

By Sunday, however, tensions swept the country as the announcement of the final results was delayed and charges of vote-rigging flew. Owners of supermarkets and shops chained their doors in anticipation of riots.

International election observers expressed concern. Election chairman Samuel Kivuitu complained that some election officials from Kibaki strongholds had "gone underground" with their vote tallies, raising suspicions that they were stuffing ballot boxes.

When Kivuitu finally appeared in a conference hall packed with reporters Sunday to announce the winner, the situation degenerated into chaos.

Odinga and his entourage interrupted the announcement, marching into the hall claiming to have evidence that tallies from the field did not match those reported to the commission. They produced one local election official who said he was pressured to sign a tally sheet with inflated numbers.

A shouting and shoving match ensued, and soon Kivuitu was whisked out of the hall and up to a meeting room where he finally announced the results to a small group of reporters.

"This means Honorable Mwai Kibaki is the winner," he said blandly, as truckloads of riot police fanned out across the capital.

In a statement, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, chief of the European Union observer mission, noted irregularities including a final tally from one polling center that had nearly 25,000 more votes for Kibaki than officials had announced on election day.

"Because of this and other observed irregularities, some doubt remains as to the accuracy of the result," he said.

U.S. Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger said that although there were "problems with the process," the United States would accept Kivuitu's announcement.

"Look at the U.S.," he said, just before Kivuitu announced the results. "The results are often disputed, and if there's a dispute, there are the courts. I'm optimistic that what happens today will not alter the course of Kenya."