The delay in Zimbabwe's presidential election results is unpleasantly familiar but a Kenya-style crisis could be averted by the run-off system, Kenya's Standard newspaper said on Thursday.

"Runoff Offers Hope of Popular Mandate," was the headline of the first editorial to be published in Kenya on the elections in Zimbabwe, which took place on Saturday.

"Yes, Zimbabwe is at a familiar tipping point," said The Standard, Kenya's second daily in terms of circulation.

Mugabe under pressure

Veteran president Robert Mugabe, whose party lost control of parliament in the polls, was under pressure by the opposition and the international community on Thursday to announce the outcome of the presidential poll.

The delay has fuelled suspicions that the 84-year-old leader was seeking to tamper with the results and cling to the seat he has held since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.

Kenya's worst post-independence political crisis erupted when delays in vote tallying for the 27 December presidential poll saw incumbent president Mwai Kibaki pip pre-election frontrunner Raila Odinga to retain the top job.

Odinga accused the 76-year-old Kibaki of rigging the results, sparking nationwide riots that swiftly deteriorated into a cycle of ethnic killings. The violence left at least 1500 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

"Unlike Kenya's first-past-the-post system, which allows few options for dealing with a close vote other than the courts or the streets, Zimbabwe's two-round runoff system could be the mechanism that forces a relatively peaceful transition," The Standard said in its editorial.

"There is a lesson here for Kenya," the paper said.

AFP

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