Kenyans begin voting on new constitution

Kenyans began voting Wednesday morning amid tight security on a proposed constitution. Queues of several hundred people had already formed at several polling stations in Nairobi and elsewhere in the country when voting opened at 6 am local time.

Supporters attend a "Yes' vote campaign rally in the capital Nairobi Reuters

Police said some 70,000 security forces had been deployed across the country to prevent

03:02

Mzalendo Kibunjia, National Cohesion and Reconciliation Commission chairman

Billie O'Kadameri

a repeat of the violence that flared up two and half years ago and to encourage voters to turn out en masse.

Some changes in Kenya’s new constitution

• Greater checks and balances on the executive;*
• Dual citizenship - women can pass on Kenyan nationality to their children;
• Abortion if the mother's health is in danger;
• A commission to manage public land;
• Recognition of Kadhi Muslim courts.
   

Backed by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the yes vote has a clear edge in opinion polls.

"Tomorrow, we cast our votes to determine how we want our country governed," Kibaki said in a televised address Tuesday, describing the referendum as a "defining moment in our nation's history".

The no campaign is being led by members of the locally dominant Kalenjin tribe, whose leaders claim the new constitution would lead to taxation or even seizure of their land by the government, dominated by Kikuyus and Luos.

Salim Lone, senior advisor to Kenya’s Prime Minister, said he blamed the clergy opposing the draft for having run a serious misinformation campaign.

“The biggest victims will be those Church leaders who lied through their teeth,” said Lone.

Mzalendo Kibunjiahe, the chairman of Kenya’s National Cohesion and Reconciliation Commission, said he hoped this process would be proof, ahead of the 2012 elections, that the Kenyans were able to run a political process “without tearing the country apart”.

Kenya’s last presidential polls, in December 2007, led to disputes and violence that left nearly 1,500 people dead, and about half a million displaced.