Diplomatic pressure mounted today on Kenya's political leaders to stem the violence that has engulfed the country in the wake of disputed presidential elections claiming nearly 260 lives.
A second consecutive night of tribal conflict and clashes between police and protesters left more than 70 dead, with no end in sight to the unrest that has plunged one of Africa's more stable democracies into an unprecedented and crippling crisis.
World leaders called on Kenya's rival leaders to open a dialogue, but Raila Odinga, the opposition candidate defeated in the 27th December poll by incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, today refused to negotiate until Kibaki owned up to vote-rigging allegations and stepped down.
"I have asked my people to be peaceful, to desist from acts of hooliganism or thuggery, but to continue to protest peacefully, which is what we call the act of civil disobedience until President Kibaki agrees to hand over power," Odinga said in an interview with the BBC.
His charges of fraud were lent extra weight by the EU team monitoring the elections which issued a report today saying the vote had "fallen short" of international standards and called for an independent audit into the results.
The polls were "marred by a lack of transparency in the processing an tallying of presidential rsults, which raises concerns about the accuracy of he final results," the report said.
"We believe it is vital that an impartial investigation into the accuracy of the presidential results is conducted," chief EU observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told reporters. - DDNEWS
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