spoken too soon

perhaps.

in the midst of my spiel about the glory and integrity of kenyan elections, i might have mentioned it was an overwhelming peaceful process. that distinction, however, has been thrown out of the door.

there's been rioting, looting, machete weilding and underage drinking throughout the country, participated in by both ruling party and opposition supporters. not pretty. the overwhelming lead once held by the opposition has been whittled down to a mere 40,000 votes, and concerns of vote rigging and election racketeering are high and things are pretty tense.

my friends on the ground are sending rather scary and cryptic updates. people are staying indoors and glued to the local news, which i gather is not providing much information and there are allegations of media being in bed with certain politicians and waiting to release "information." the outstanding results are being held hostage, supposedly, by election officials who have turned off their phones. a press briefing with the electoral commission turned into a fracas earlier on saturday and armed police had to infiltrate the site to calm things down.

oh!