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Elections give Kenyan opposition a chance, churches urge peaceful process
2002-246-5
10/23/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's founding president, on October 23 launched his presidential campaign and asked for prayers, while at the same time African church leaders pleaded for peace in elections that could see the ruling party lose for the first time. Kenyatta, President Daniel arap Moi's favorite, was chosen as the candidate for the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU), despite the opposition of some senior party members, several of whom defected after he was nominated.
'This is formally the start of my presidential campaign, and I ask for your blessings and prayers as I go into the political battlefield,' Kenyatta said near the ancestral home of his father, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, not far from Mount Kenya in the country's central highlands.
Moi is standing down after 24 years in power, and the election, set for December, is seen as the best chance the opposition has of ousting the ruling party from power since the country's independence 40 years ago.
The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), a grouping of 168 member churches in 39 African countries representing 80 million Christians, prefaced the campaign by urging Kenyans to preserve peace in the build up to the East African country's third multi-party elections. 'It is our prayer that this image of Kenya will be maintained in the trying moments when electioneering tends to provoke violence in many countries,' said the AACC's interim general secretary, Melaku Kifle, in a statement on October 21.
Kenyan church leaders had earlier expressed fears that Moi might try to thwart the implementation of a new constitution being debated in Kenya, the draft of which was unveiled last month by the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CRCK). The draft constitution considerably reduces the power of the presidency and suggests radical changes for the judiciary. The parliament would be able to vet the appointment of cabinet ministers, now the prerogative of the president. But Moi dismissed the draft document as unsuitable for Kenyans and only workable in Europe.
The Reverend Peter Njoka, senior minister at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, said: 'The Anglican Church of Kenya wants the forthcoming elections held under a new constitution,' noting that the process for it was unstoppable.
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