Kenya awaiting election result

Vote counting has begun in Kenya's general election after an impressive turnout kept some polling stations open beyond the official time.

Voters on Monday remained queued past the 14:00GMT deadline. Many waited for more than six hours at a time to cast ballots for a president, senators, members of parliament, county governors and representatives to the newly formed county assembly.

The general election marks the first vote since deadly ethnic violence that killed more than 1,200 people following disputed polls in 2007.

Turnout topped 70%, the head of the Independent Boundaries and Electoral Commission said late on Monday.

"All indications are for over 70% turnout," Ahmed Issack Hassan told journalists, saying he would announce a more accurate figure later.

The ODM party of Raila Odinga, outgoing prime minister, has expressed its disatisfaction with certain elements of election conduct.

Franklin Bett, party spokesman, said that at some polling stations electoral officials had to identify voters manually.

That may have led to some ghost voters or people casting their ballot twice.he two rivals for the presidency, Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta, deputy prime minister, have publicly vowed that there would be no repeat of the violence, which displaced more than 600,000 people.

With 14 million registered voters heading to the polls, a police spokesman said that 99,000 officers have been deployed to avert a repeat of deadly violence in December 2007.

But just before the polls officially opened, police in the coastal city of Mombasa reported night time raids by machete-wielding gangs who ambused officers.

At least 19 people were killed in an incident in the coastal city, including six police officers.

Sources reported that it was the work of the Mombasa Republican Council, a secessionist group on Kenya's coast.

The MRC has denied responsibility for the coastal violence.

In Kilifi, a gang assaulted security forces at a school which was being used as a voting centre. At least four officers were killed.

The police said late on Sunday that criminals were planning to dress in police uniforms and disrupt voting in some locations.

About 23,000 observers, including 2,600 international monitors, will be deployed, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

But watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch have warned that the risk of renewed political violence is "perilously high." Many Kenyans have left the cities to wait out the vote in their home villages.