(AFP) - Incumbent Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga were neck-and-neck in Kenya's presidential race Saturday as a delayed count led to accusations of vote-rigging and widespread rioting.
The electoral commission said the elusive presidential result was now expected on Sunday as its latest count showed Odinga's once clear lead had melted away to less than 40,000 votes.
Angry Odinga supporters went on the rampage in Nairobi and across the country, looting and burning despite calls by their party and observers to exercise restraint.
"There are riots all over the country, except a few areas, but there is sufficient security to maintain law and order," a top police official told AFP as fears of unrest grew.
An AFP correspondent said hundreds of opposition supporters had faced off Saturday morning with riot police in the massive pro- Odinga Nairobi slum of Kibera , shouting "No Raila , No Kenya!" and "We want our rights!"
Police fired live shots in the air to disperse feuding mobs, while water cannons doused the flames of shops and houses set ablaze by demonstrators.
Protestors also lit bonfires, set up rogue roadblocks and looted shops in several Odinga bastions across the country, including Kisumu , Kakamega and Eldoret , police and witnesses said.
"They want to steal votes. They are counting votes from regions favouring Kibaki and then they want to declare him the winner. We do not want violence, we want our rights," said one protester, Peter Oduor .
In western Nyanza province, a man was shot dead following a disagreement in a polling station, police said, bringing to four the number of people killed since the polls opened on Thursday morning.
Earlier Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement jumped the gun by declaring victory and asking Kibaki to concede, a move the president's camp described as a loser's last resort.
"In view of the growing anxiety and restlessness in the country over the extended delay in releasing the presidential results, we now call upon the outgoing president to acknowledge and respect the will of the Kenyan people and concede defeat," ODM's vice-presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi had said.
He was forced to eat his words when electoral commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu told a press conference hours later that Odinga's 300,000-vote had all but evaporated.
By 2:30 pm (1130 GMT) Odinga had mustered 3,880,053 votes while Kibaki had garnered 3,842,051, a difference of just over 38,000, Kivuitu announced.
The election commission chairman did not specify how many constituencies were included in the tally or how many were still to be counted.
The press conference quickly deteriorated into a shouting match between party agents with Odinga officials accusing Kibaki's camp of rigging the results.
Following complaints of irregularities, the election commission announced that checks would be carried out overnight before the announcement of further results on Sunday.
On Friday, officials from Odinga's ODM had started accusing the state of deliberately slowing down the counting process to leave time for results to be rigged and tempers to flare.
In what some analysts had seen as an indication of the way the presidential result should swing, Kibaki suffered stinging setbacks in the legislative elections, also conducted on Thursday.
According to provisional results, voters ousted from parliament at least half of his cabinet, including vice president Moody Awori , as well as the three sons of former dictator Daniel arap Moi .
International observers said after voting ended that the polling process, overseen by some 65,000 security forces and 30,000 local and foreign monitors, had been orderly and positive despite a few isolated incidents.
The 76-year-old Kibaki is seeking a second term, boasting a solid economic record, while Odinga , 62, has sought to sway opinion by arguing that the country's economic growth has not benefited many Kenyans.
Odinga held the edge over Kibaki in nearly all pre-election opinion polls and enjoyed a clear lead in the early counting following Thursday's presidential vote.