NAIROBI, KENYA — Machete-wielding youths rioted in Kenya on Saturday as each party vying for the presidency declared its candidate the winner, threatening an election that was initially praised by international observers.
In early results, challenger Raila Odinga had led President Mwai Kibaki by several hundred thousand votes, but by late Saturday, Odinga's lead had dwindled. Amid opposition accusations of fraud, riots exploded in several cities.
In Odinga's strongholds, supporters from his Luo tribe looted businesses and set fire to shops and houses belonging to Kikuyus, the tribe associated with Kibaki.
Police fired tear gas as youths rioted and chanted anti-Kikuyu slogans in the Kibera slum area of Nairobi after Odinga's lead was whittled down in an election that is crucial to consolidating this East African nation's young democracy.
There also was mayhem in Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, the Reuters news agency reported. Police battled rioting opposition supporters, who looted shops and burned buildings.
At least one person died in the violence in Kisumu, and the Associated Press reported that three people had been fatally shot in election violence in the southwestern town of Migori.
Violence also was reported in the coastal town of Mombasa and elsewhere.
Late Saturday, the Electoral Commission of Kenya put Odinga's lead over Kibaki at only 38,000 votes, with 191 of 210 constituencies counted.
The latest tallies were 3,880,053 for Odinga and 3,842,051 for Kibaki.
Earlier, Odinga had racked up a substantial lead. The opposition Orange Democratic Movement had declared him the winner and called on Kibaki to concede.
"In view of the growing anxiety and restlessness in the country over the extended delay . . . we now call upon the outgoing president to acknowledge and respect the will of the Kenyan people and concede defeat," said Musalia Mudavadi, the party's candidate for vice president.
Kibaki's Party of National Unity countered by releasing its own count, putting the president ahead and declaring him the winner.
Kenya's last presidential election, in 2002, was seen by analysts as its first real democratic vote, though multiparty elections were reintroduced in 1992. If Kibaki loses, it will be the first time an incumbent president has been voted out in Kenya, and one of only a few cases in sub-Saharan Africa.
