NAIROBI (AFP) — Kenya's opposition demanded a presidential poll re-run Friday but the government stood its ground following days of protests as Washington's top Africa envoy arrived to push for an end to the crisis.
A massive police presence prevented opposition demonstrators from gathering in Nairobi, although some clashes were reported in the port of Mombasa and the western city of Kisumu, Kenya's second and third largest cities respectively.
Hundreds of people have died in political and tribal violence since December 27 polls led to the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki and claims of vote-rigging from defeated challenger Raila Odinga.
Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) said Friday it wanted a fresh vote within three months, a demand quickly dismissed by the government.
"The government will never yield to blackmail. People should stop using violence as blackmail," spokesman Alfred Mutua.
But he added: "If the court orders a re-run, it will be done, the president will accept a court order." Odinga has said he would not resort to a judiciary he accuses of loyalty to Kibaki.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer arrived in Nairobi late Friday and is expected to meet both Kibaki and Odinga to try to defuse the crisis.
She will hope to broker a solution where previous efforts failed, though South African Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu emerged Friday from talks with Kibaki optimistic about possible coalition rule.
"There is a great deal of hope since both the Orange Democratic Movement and government have indicated they are open to negotiations," Tutu told reporters.
"The president was not averse to the formation of coalitions -- but clearly there has to be an acceptance that there is a governing authority in the country," he added.
The European Union called "on both sides to avoid violence and start political dialogue," said a spokesman for its new Slovenian presidency.
He said the bloc would "actively support African efforts to solve the issue," but an EU diplomat said that after an extensive briefing it had been decided "this is a situation which the Kenyans themselves need to resolve."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon meanwhile held separate phone conversations with Kibaki and Odinga, his spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters.
"In both conversations, he discussed the return to calm and normalcy in Kenya and humanitarian needs (and) called upon the political leaders to resolve their issues through dialogue," she said.
Police in Nairobi maintained a tense calm Friday after using water cannon and tear gas the day before to disperse Odinga supporters staging a rally designed to declare the fiery 62-year-old the "people's president".
But four bodies were recovered in the western town of Eldoret, bringing to 360 the total number of people who have died in violence since polling day, according to a tally compiled by AFP.
The head of the Kenyan Red Cross warned the violence may still continue.
"So long as the political situation remains what it is, we're not out of the woods," Abbas Gullet told AFP, adding nevertheless that military assistance and a lull in violence had allowed aid operations to take place.
Following appeals for restraint from religious groups, the Kenyan press and the international community, the clashes have fallen off over the past two days, but no clear way out of the stalemate has emerged.
US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said Frazer would meet with Odinga and Kibaki "as well as others in Kenyan civil society to see what ideas they might generate in order to find a way out of this political crisis."
Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako has called for a probe into the vote results, which the chairman of the electoral board admitted were flawed.
A police official said that an opposition politician was being investigated for arming and inciting gangs who torched a church in western Kenya in which 35 people, mainly women and children, died on Tuesday.
Many members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe have fled to neighbouring Uganda.
The Kenyan Red Cross has estimated at 100,000 the number of people displaced by ethnic violence.
The unrest prompted many foreign tour operators to suspend trips to Kenya, depriving the country of a major source of revenue, but the government insisted that tourists were safe.
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