Kenya's opposition on Saturday declared victory in the country's presidential election, although the electoral commission was still counting votes and the incumbent was closing the gap.
"Honourable Raila Odinga is therefore the winner and fourth president of the Republic of Kenya," Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) official, Musalia Mudavadi, said in a statement to reporters, citing his party's own tally.
Mudavadi is the vice-presidential candidate running on Odinga's ticket. However, President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) dismissed the move as a last ditch trick by a losing challenger, while international observers urged both sides to refrain from premature declarations of victory.
Two days after general elections were held in relative calm, vote counting was still under way, leading the opposition to allege that Kibaki's camp may be seeking to buy time for rigging.
"In view of the growing anxiety and restlessness in the country over the extended delay in releasing the presidential results, we now call upon the outgoing president to acknowledge and respect the will of the Kenyan people and concede defeat," Mudavadi said.
"We further call upon him to direct his officers to begin the process of a smooth transition," he added. Kibaki's party dismissed ODM's declaration of victory and charged Odinga's party was resorting to dirty tactics because they could sense defeat.
"It is only the electoral commission of Kenya that can declare the winner, not any party. You cannot be a player and referee at the same time," PNU press secretary Dismas Mokua told AFP. "These people are sensing defeat that is why they are rushing to claim victory," Mokua added.
Foreign observers urged parties to restrain their supporters as riots erupted in several Nairobi slums and urban areas across the country, protesting the delays.
"Behave responsibly to keep Kenya free of any more clashes or civil unrest," EU chief observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told a press conference, while describing the delays as "regrettable." The Commonwealth's chief observer, former Sierra Leone president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, encouraged protesters to seek legal redress instead.
"I appeal to leaders to regard the elections as a friendly contest," he said.
The observers said they were probing allegations that the turnout at some polling centres was higher than the actual numbers of registered voters. Electoral Commission Chairman Samuel Kivuitu said earlier Saturday that there was no clear explanation for the delays and warned that his body might have to settle for incomplete results.
According to the ODM count communicated by Mudavadi, Odinga mustered 4,215,437 votes to Kibaki's 3,748,261, representing more than half of the ballots believed to have been cast on Thursday. No official voter turnout figure has been released.