Kenyans vote for president; 10 killed in attack on police

NAIROBI. March 4. KAZINFORM The stakes are high for Monday's presidential election in Kenya. It is the first poll since East Africa's largest economy plunged into ethnic violence after disputed results in the last election.

And residents are anxious to avoid a repeat.

Hours before the polls opened, a group of heavily-armed men attacked a police station in the port city of Mombasa, killing at least 10 people, including two police officers, said Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Odinga blamed the attack on the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a separatist group that wants Mombasa, the second-largest city in Kenya, and its surrounding coastal area to secede.

Elsewhere in the country, throngs of Kenyans lined up to choose a president in the tight, anxiously awaited general election, CNN reported.

"We are excited; this has been a long time coming," said Mark Kamau, who lives in the capital of Nairobi. "We are ready to show the world that this is not the Kenya they saw in 2007."

In the Kenyan town of Ketengela, south of Nairobi, at least 20 people were hospitalized following a stampede at a polling station, CNN affiliate NTV reported.

After the disastrous vote in 2007, the government boosted security and set up an ambitious new constitution, making it one of the nation's most complicated polls since it gained independence from Britain in 1963.

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