Prime Minister Raila Odinga's party won three parliamentary seats on Thursday after by-elections that went peacefully despite fears of a repeat of violence seen in the crisis after Kenya's presidential poll.
The party of President Mwai Kibaki, which formed a coalition government with Odinga in April to end the crisis after December's vote, won two seats after five by-elections on Wednesday, a statement from Kibaki's office said. International observers were closely watching proceedings in the first voting in Kenya since Kibaki's disputed re-election sparked violence that killed at least 1,300 people, displaced 300,000 more and paralysed key sectors of the economy.
Wednesday's voting and the overnight tallying appeared to have gone smoothly, although armed police in riot gear with dogs patrolled polling stations in case of trouble. Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) clinched the three provincial seats of Ainamoi, Wajir North and Emuhaya.
Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) won the Kilgoris seat near the Masai Mara game reserve, and Nairobi's Embakasi constituency, formerly an ODM stronghold. The by-elections were to fill seats where two ODM legislators were shot dead and another two constituencies that were undeclared in the chaotic aftermath of December's vote.