By Andrew Cawthorne and C. Bryson Hull
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police battled protesters in blazing slums on Monday after disputed elections returned President Mwai Kibaki to power and triggered turmoil believed to have killed more than 100 people.
Fatal riots convulsed pockets of the nation, from opposition strongholds in the west near the Ugandan border to Nairobi's shanty-towns and the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean Coast.
Reuters reporters estimated around 100 deaths, based on witnesses, body counts and credible media reports. Broadcaster KTN said by mid-afternoon the toll had reached at least 124.
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.
Kibaki in a statement urged healing, reconciliation and unity going into the New Year. But he warned: "My government will ... deal decisively with those who breach the peace by intensifying security across the country."
Much fighting pitched Luos, who back defeated opposition leader Raila Odinga, against Kibaki's ethnic Kikuyu group.
In the western town of Kisumu, a hotbed of opposition support, 21 bodies lay in and around a hospital mortuary, witnesses said. Most had gunshot wounds.
In Nairobi's Mathare slum, police threatened to shoot people coming out of their homes, witnesses said.
Police fired teargas to turn back protesters chanting "No Raila, No Peace!" as they thronged out onto a main Nairobi street from the massive Kibera slum in Odinga's constituency, already the scene of rioting and violence.
'WANTON RIGGING'
Odinga again demanded Kibaki step down, and said: "I am the elected president of the Republic of Kenya."
He called for a mass rally on Thursday in Nairobi's main Uhuru Park, named for the word freedom in Swahili.
"For the last 48 hours the people of Kenya have seen their nascent democracy shackled, strangled and finally killed."
But Kibaki's Party of National Unity shot back that Odinga's people had engaged in "wanton rigging by ballot-stuffing" that had fraudulently given them more than 900,000 votes and turnout of more than 100 percent in Odinga strongholds.
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, referring to Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Activists slammed it as an attack on press freedom in a nation usually termed one of Africa's most vibrant democracies. Mutua said there was no limit on content, just a forced delay so editors would review potentially inflammatory statements.
In Nairobi, siren-blaring ambulances and armoured cars with water cannons 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."
TOURISTS STRANDED
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 expressed concern, and the United States noted "serious problems" in the vote-count in a second statement after originally congratulating Kibaki. But it urged challengers to use the courts.
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.
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 the dire economy left by his strongman predecessor Daniel arap Moi to an average 5 percent growth since 2002, faces a momentous task to reunite a country where ethnic tension has periodically sparked bloodletting.
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."
"The electoral process lost credibility towards the end with regard to the tallying and announcement of presidential results," pronounced the Kenya Election Domestic Observation Forum (KEDOF) in its assessment report issued on Monday.
