NAIROBI – Opposition protests in Kenya faltered yesterday and the government said it was ready to accept a court-ordered re-run of an election whose disputed result unleashed a wave of violence.

The UN said, however, that it was scrambling to get food to 100,000 terrified people facing starvation in western Kenya after they fled the violence, which included the burning to death of 30 people in a church.

Protesters, exhausted after hours of street battles with police on Thursday, failed to march on central Nairobi again yesterday."We’re tired, we’re not going to march,” said Samuel Muhati, a resident of the Mathare slum. "Let the fighting stop.”

As mediation efforts picked up pace, the government said it was ready for a re-run of the disputed December 27 vote, but only if ordered by a court.

"We would accept even another election as long as the constitution is followed. If the courts decide it, we would accept that,” said Alfred Mutua, spokesman for President Mwai Kibaki.

Raila Odinga’s opposition Orange Democratic Party (ODM) charges that Kibaki stole the vote to lead east Africa’s biggest economy. It says the courts are packed with Kibaki allies and legal appeals could take years.

At least 300 people have died in the wave of killings that followed Kibaki’s disputed victory.

South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, trying to mediate an end to the turmoil, said Kibaki was ready for a coalition government if the opposition accepted his terms.
"There is a great deal of hope,” said Tutu.

Although Nairobi returned to some appearance of normality, with more traffic on the streets, police fired teargas in the port of Mombasa to disperse about 500 Muslim anti-government demonstrators after Friday prayers.

France yesterday backed the opposition charges of fraud in the strongest foreign criticism yet of the vote.

"Were the elections rigged or not? I think so, many think so, the Americans think so, the British think so, and they know the country well,” Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

The refusal of Kibaki and Odinga to talk to each other has provoked a flurry of mediation efforts.

The US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer was due in Nairobi last night to meet Kibaki and Odinga.

"They have an opportunity to come together in some kind of arrangement that will help heal the wounds,” US President George W. Bush told Reuters.

The World Bank said the violence could hurt Kenya’s impressive economic gains -- and harm neighbouring countries that rely on it as the region’s business and transport hub.

Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are already suffering fuel shortages as the conflict chokes off supplies from Mombasa. The UN World Food Programme said its biggest problem in getting food to displaced people was moving trucks to western Kenya.

With the economic ramifications starting to sink in, stocks and currency trade restarted yesterday after being halted during Thursday’s street battles. But the turmoil caused sharp fluctuations in the Kenyan shilling and the stock exchange lost 2.3 percent.

Kenyans grew increasingly impatient at Kibaki and Odinga’s failure to talk to end the violence.

"Despite the words of concern by both sides about the dangerous situation in Kenya and public statements that they are ready for dialogue, belligerence is still drowning out voices of reason,” said the Daily Nation newspaper.

The ODM secretary-general said the party was demanding that Kibaki step down, an internationally recognised body mediate and a "transitional arrangement” -- not government -- be set up prior to a new vote.

Such a vote should take place "in no less then three months”, Anyang’ Nyong’o added, saying protests would continue.

Kenyans are aghast at the turmoil in a nation popular among tourists for its safaris and Indian Ocean beaches, and which is a major hub for the United Nations, diplomats, journalists, aid workers and others working around turbulent east Africa.

Reuters