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Kenya’s opposition vows to ignore government ban on protests

Kenya hurtled headlong into a political showdown Thursday as opposition leaders vowed to ignore a government ban on protests in key downtown areas and take to the streets again on Friday, and every day starting Monday.

Kenya’s opposition has declared the upcoming Oct. 26 presidential election even more dubious than the ballot in August, which the country’s Supreme Court ruled had been too corrupt to stand.

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Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost to sitting president Uhuru Kenyatta in the Aug. 8 poll, announced he was pulling out of the do-over election on Tuesday because the ballot couldn’t be considered credible, but authorities said this week that the election will proceed anyway.

Observers including the U.S. State Department are now voicing their concern that rising tensions between Kenya’s two leading national political camps could lead to fresh conflict. A decade ago, wide-scale violence erupted after contested elections in 2007, in which 1,200 were killed and 600,000 displaced.

Read more: International observers worry Kenya may be spiraling out of control

Some cautioned that the new ban on protests, announced Thursday, may itself become the backdrop for bloodshed.

“This ban, announced just two weeks ahead of a fraught repeat presidential election, is likely to become a basis for heavy-handed police crackdowns,” said Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East Africa.

Kenya has already brimmed with sporadic political violence during this election cycle. At least 17 demonstrators were hospitalized on Wednesday with bullet wounds and other injuries, said medical workers in Kisumu, an opposition stronghold, Reuters reported. A recent report by an independent human rights group found that 37 people were killed in protests immediately following the Aug. 8 poll.

Odinga traveled to the UK on Wednesday night, where he is expected to address a political forum called “Kenya’s Next Test; Democracy, Elections and the Rule of Law Research.” He is expected to return to Kenya Saturday.