Landslide smashes Moi's grip on Kenya

Kenya's opposition has won a historic landslide election victory last night to end President Daniel arap Moi's 24-year rule and remove the corrupt clique that had backed him.

With most of the votes counted, the opposition leader Mwai Kibaki of the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc)had a 33 percentage point lead over Uhuru Kenyatta, candidate for the Kenya African National Union, or Kanu - the party that has ruled this East African nation since independence from Britain in 1963, the Institute for Education in Democracy said.

Turnout was 56%, the institute said.

Even worse for Mr Moi's Kanu party, a string of upsets in the parliamentary polls saw nine government ministers and various party heavyweights lose their seats. Among them were the controversial interior minister, Julius Sunkuli, long-time Moi sycophant Shariff Nassir and vice-president Musalia Mudavadi, who was also Mr Kenyatta's running mate. But the Moi dynasty retained a fingerhold in the shape of the president's son Gideon, the only MP to win his seat unopposed.

Worries about vote rigging and violence were quickly forgotten as opposition MPs celebrated their victory. The Narc leader, Raila Odinga, who had threatened to storm State House – the presidential residence – if the election was fixed, grinned broadly as he was declared winner of his Nairobi constituency. "I am overwhelmed," he said as his supporters filled the hall with Swahili chants of "Rainbow! Rainbow!" and "Without Moi everything is possible".

Despite some localised voting irregularities on Friday and a handful of violent clashes, the poll passed with remarkable calm. "This shows that left alone, Kenyans can conduct free and fair elections," said Mr Odinga.

President Moi appeared determined to keep his promise to ensure a peaceful transition. As the results trickled in yesterday morning, he signed off as army commander-in-chief at a ceremony in a Nairobi military camp.

The success of Kenya's election is being seen as a sign of hope for democracy on a continent blighted by war and political violence. "We need more of this in Africa," said one delighted Western diplomat in Nairobi. The peaceful scenes contrasted with escalating warfare on the other side of the continent in Ivory Coast, a nation until recently seen as an oasis of stability, where French troops clashed with rebels last week.

But there had also been jitters about the Kenya poll. Kanu's attempted vote rigging and widespread "dirty tricks" marred the final weeks of campaigning. Localised violence left more than a dozen people dead.

According to Transparency International (TI), many voters received bribes in the final days of polling, mostly from Kanu. But given the size of the Narc victory, it appears most just pocketed the money and voted for the opposition.

Mr Kibaki, a veteran politician who served as Mr Moi's vice-president during the 1980s, has promised to revive the economy and stamp out corruption. But Mr Kibaki is unlikely to prosecute the crimes of the Moi era. Some of his allies are former Kanu stalwarts who themselves have been embroiled in corruption scandals. Most prominent among them is George Saitoti, finance minister at the time of a scandal that cost the Kenyan treasury up to £660m in the early 1990s.

After casting his vote on Friday, Mr Saitoti said the government would be "forward looking", then added: "We will not be driven by retribution."