The British Foreign Office has denied claims that London was interfering with the electoral process in Kenya, and called for calm as the East African nation awaits the results of Monday's presidential polls.
It said Wednesday that London did not prefer any particular candidate in the Kenyan elections and that it deployed a group of 40 election observers to Kenya.
The Jubilee Coalition, which comprises Uhuru Kenyatta, Charity Ngilu, the Senatorial race loser, and William Ruto, the Coalition's running mate, accused the British High Commission of taking sides.
In a statement, the group said; 'We were deeply concerned about the 'shadowy, suspicious and rather animated involvement' of the British High Commissioner to Kenya, Dr. Christian Turner, in the elections.'
The Coalition said the envoy was canvassing to have rejected votes tallied in an attempt to deny the Jubilee Coalition outright victory as indeed all indicators are showing at the moment.
The Kenyan party also said it was concerned about what it called 'an influx of British soldiers to Kenya' since the election day.
It said: 'We at Jubilee Coalition are alarmed by the abnormally high influx of British Military personnel into the country which began around the voting day, under the pretext of training.
'Kenya and Britain are traditional friends, but can the British High Commissioner explain to Kenyans the sudden upsurge in British military presence in the country.'
The Foreign Office had said that claims of British interference, including by the High Commission in Nairobi, were 'entirely false and misleading. In particular, the said claims that the ongoing training of British soldiers in Kenya were totally unrelated to the elections.
British soldiers have been training in parts of Kenya where its military trainers say are preferred because they offer the trainees adverse weather conditions and high temperatures similar to combat conditions in Afghanistan.
'The British soldiers currently in Kenya are here as part of the regular training unit in Kenya. This is a routine exercise and is not related to elections and was agreed with the Ministry of Defence,' the Foreign Office said.
However, Nairobi threatened to cancel the training agreement with Britain in 2003 following President Mwai Kibaki's elections the previous year and a series of bilateral disagreements, including those on military supplies to Kenyan forces. The issue was later resolved.
Kenyans went to the polls Monday to choose a new set of leaders under a new constitution, which replaced the constitutional charter inherited from Britain after talks on the terms of Kenya's independence.
The 30-month old constitution created new offices of Governors for 47 counties, a two-chamber parliament that existed under the 1963 law but was removed, and positions for local county parliamentarians.
The intention of the new law is to reduce state power from the central government by empowering the 47 counties to run their local affairs, including collecting local revenue which is currently the duty of the central government.
Pana 06/03/2013