Kenyan riot police charge toward opposition protesters during clashes in the Mathare slum of Nairobi on Wednesday. Opposition supporters boycotted Thursday's rerun of Kenya's disputed presidential election. (Ben Curtis/AP)

A day after Kenya's presidential vote, there was no doubt about the winner. Preliminary results showed President Uhuru Kenyatta receiving 98 percent of the ballots cast in the election, which was held after an earlier result was annulled because of irregularities.

What was less clear is how this country, one of sub-Saharan Africa's most influential nations, will emerge from a political crisis.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga had boycotted Thursday's election, claiming that the country was not ready to hold a credible poll after the bungled August vote.

Kenyans waited nervously to see how his supporters would react once Kenyatta's reelection was announced.

On Thursday and Friday, some of them lobbed rocks at police and screamed "No Raila, no peace."

At least six people have died in violence related to the election.

In several opposition strongholds, election officials were unable to deliver voting materials amid the protests.

The election in four of Kenya's 47 counties was initially rescheduled for Saturday but later postponed indefinitely because of fears of demonstrations and violence. "Repeat election exposes two faces of Kenya," said a front-page headline in Kenya's Standard newspaper.

Odinga has vowed to transform his political party into a "resistance movement" and called on his supporters to defy the "illegitimate governmental authority." He has not yet specified what form that defiance should take.

Protracted protests would damage Kenya's economy, one of the largest on the continent. If left unhealed, the widening political divide would be a major blow to a nation that has been a key security partner to Western countries and had been seen as East Africa's most stable democracy.

So far, Odinga has rejoiced that the first step in his resistance project succeeded — he persuaded his followers to boycott the election.

"We wish to thank all our supporters who heeded our call to stay away from the discredited polls," Odinga said Friday.

In an interview with CNN, Odinga said he would announce measures on Monday that will "bring pressure on this government to step aside." An effective, sustained campaign against the government will be a major challenge in Kenya, where the government has near-absolute control over security.

"Odinga can't be written off. He has the support of nearly half the electorate, at the very least, but it's doubtful that he'll have the stomach or the resources to launch a movement that would topple the government," said Murithi Mutiga, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

For his part, Kenyatta told reporters Thursday that he would attempt to communicate with the opposition, but he stopped well short of suggesting the possibility of a coalition government, or a political compromise with Odinga. "As a responsible leader, you must reach out, and that is my intention," Kenyatta said.

Since Kenya's Supreme Court annulled August's election, citing irregularities with the way the vote was carried out, Kenya has suffered financially, even as the nation's judiciary was praised around the world for its independence. Odinga won 44 percent of that first vote, but his supporters claim that he would have won a majority if not for the electoral commission's malfeasance.

Authorities said only about one-third of registered voters cast ballots in Thursday's election, compared with nearly 80 percent who voted in August.

In some Odinga strongholds, particularly in western Kenya, the opposition leader's supporters are calling for secession or a parallel government. They call Odinga ­"father" — a man who has now run unsuccessfully for president four times, the son of a former vice president. He publicly dismisses the idea that he is an ethnic leader, even though nearly all of his staunchest followers come from the same tribal coalition and particularly from his own Luo tribe.

Those tribes saw Odinga as their great hope after years in which they said they were marginalized by Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe. Many of Odinga's supporters nonetheless have become a part of the country's growing middle class, and it is not clear they are willing to become part of a new resistance movement.

Lillian Ochieng, 26, has supported Odinga for most of her life. She graduated from university with an accounting degree.

She saved enough money to open a beauty supply shop that has earned a steady profit in Nairobi's Mathare slum. She hopes Odinga succeeds, but she is not willing to sacrifice her own economic aspirations to join a resistance movement.

"What can I do? I won't throw any rocks. I will keep myself in the house. I will continue to open my businesses as long as people are not fighting," Ochieng said.

That question of how to defy another Kenyatta presidency circulated across social media on Friday, with young Odinga supporters trying to anticipate what kind of civil disobedience their leader would suggest.

Some of them made light of the idea of a resistance movement, with Luo men writing on Twitter that they hoped Odinga didn't instruct them to "boycott" Kikuyu women.

Other Odinga supporters, more deeply incensed by the electoral dispute, struggled to plot their next steps.

"What are the other ways of accessing power? It is a discussion that now has to be held. It's the elephant in the room," said David Osiany, who was until recently the leader of the University of Nairobi's influential student governing body. "But at this point, your guess is as good as mine."

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