By Andrew Cawthorne and Tim Cocks
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police battled protesters in blazing slums on Monday after disputed elections returned President Mwai Kibaki to power and triggered turmoil in which more than 70 people have been killed.
Fatal riots convulsed the nation, from opposition strongholds in the west near the Uganda border to Nairobi's shanty-towns and the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean Coast.
In the western town of Kisumu, a hotbed of opposition support, 21 bodies lay in and around a hospital mortuary, brought in overnight and in the morning, witnesses said.
Most had gunshot wounds.
In Nairobi's Mathare slum, police threatened to shoot people coming out of their homes, witnesses said. "Police are saying on loudspeakers from trucks that anyone found outside will be shot dead," said taxi driver Argwings Odera.
The violence threatens to deter investors from east Africa's largest economy and damage Kenya's reputation as an oasis of relative stability in a volatile and war-scarred region.
Much of the fighting pitched Luos, who support defeated opposition leader Raila Odinga, against Kibaki's ethnic Kikuyu group.
Odinga called for a mass rally later this week in Nairobi's main park to protest the vote. "We are going to call for a meeting at Uhuru park on January 3 where we expect a million Kenyans to attend," he told a news conference.
"No Raila, No Peace!" chanted youths in Nairobi's Kibera slum -- one of Africa's largest. They lit bonfires in the road and torched a petrol station before police moved in to fire teargas and bullets in the air. Bodies lay in the dirt alleys.
In Korogocho slum, rocked by clashes between protesters and police, a witness reported seeing 15 bodies.
Added to witness and credible local media reports, that would bring the death toll from riots to at least 70 since Thursday's vote. More died in chaos before the election.
Trying to defuse one of the most volatile moments in Kenya since 1963 independence, the government flooded the streets with security forces and kept a ban on live TV broadcasts.
"Africa has had its share of violence and even genocide arising from incitement by media stations," said government spokesman Alfred Mutua. "We cannot forget what happened in Rwanda," he added, referring to the 1994 genocide.
"UNDECLARED EMERGENCY"
In Nairobi, siren-blaring ambulances and armoured cars with water cannon rushed through the streets in the direction of Kibera, Mathare and Kawangware slums, where smoke could be seen rising. Helicopters flew overhead.
"We are in an undeclared state of emergency," said a statement from civil society groups. "The consequences of a stolen election must be clear to all Kenyans."
Despite a reputation as an old-school gentleman, Kibaki, 76, showed a steely core by swearing himself in within an hour of being pronounced victor in an election rejected by Odinga and questioned by international observers.
"The tallying process lacks credibility," chief European Union monitor Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told Reuters.
Former colonial ruler Britain also expressed concern although the United States sent congratulations to Kibaki.
Bewildered tourists, who contribute to an $800 million a year industry that is Kenya's top earner, were stranded by delayed flights at Mombasa airport on the Indian Ocean coast.
"We have no fuel to go anywhere. No money either, the cashpoints are dry," said Shilesh Patel, one tourist in a 20-car queue at a fast-emptying petrol station on the coast.
As supporters celebrated in his highland homeland, Kibaki urged Kenyans to "set aside the passions" from a vote he won by a narrow margin of 230,000 votes in the nation of 36 million.
Kibaki, who turned round a dire economy under his strongman predecessor Daniel arap Moi into average 5 percent growth since 2002, now faces the momentous task of reuniting a country where ethnic tension has periodically sparked bloodletting.
The ban on live broadcasts was slammed by activists as an attack on press freedom in a nation usually termed one of Africa's most vibrant democracies.
Having led every opinion poll bar one since September, then taken a strong lead in early results, the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was dismayed to see Kibaki pip it.
Kibaki took 4.58 million votes to Odinga's 4.35 million -- but the results were marred by accusations of multiple voting, disappeared returning officers and "doctoring."
