It had been predicted that this election would be close, and the final results had Kibaki winning by a sliver, 46 percent to 44 percent. But that gap may have included thousands of invalid votes. "The presidential elections were flawed," said Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the chief European observer.

The European Union said its observers witnessed election officials in one constituency announce on election night that Kibaki had won 50,145 votes. On Sunday, the election commission increased those same results to 75,261 votes.

Koki Muli, co-chairwoman of the Kenya Election Domestic Observation Forum, said she was in the room on Sunday when the election commission was presented with dozens of suspicious tally sheets, some missing signatures, others missing stamps, and most of them were from the president's stronghold of central Kenya. In some areas, more people voted for the president than there were registered voters. "I saw this with my own eyes," she said.

Muli said that 75 out of the 210 constituencies -- meaning more than one-third of the vote -- had serious question marks and that the election chairman initially agreed to investigate. But later on Sunday he changed his mind.

Kenya is a close American ally, and a team of Western diplomats, including the American ambassador, tried for hours to persuade election officials to recount the votes using original results. One Western ambassador said that they knew if the dubious results were certified and the president declared the winner based on them, Kenya would plunge into crisis. But the commission would not budge.

"The government was determined to hold onto power," said the ambassador, who did not want to be identified because he said he feared reprisals from the Kenyan government.

NY Times - Tribal Rivalry Boils Over After Kenyan Election
"It's a sad day for Kenya," said Michael E. Ranneberger, the American ambassador to Kenya. "My biggest worry now is violence, which, let's be honest, will be along tribal lines."