Odinga's party clinches three seats in by-election

By Wangui Kanina

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Raila Odinga's party won three parliamentary seats on Thursday after by-elections that went peacefully despite fears of a repeat of violence seen in the crisis after Kenya's presidential poll.

The party of President Mwai Kibaki, who formed a coalition government with Odinga in April to end the crisis after December's vote, won one seat and was leading another after five by-elections on Wednesday, party officials and media said.

International observers were closely watching proceedings in the first voting in Kenya since Kibaki's disputed re-election sparked violence that killed at least 1,300 people, displaced 300,000 more and paralysed key sectors of the economy.

Wednesday's voting and the overnight tallying appeared to have gone smoothly, although armed police in riot gear with dogs patrolled polling stations just in case of trouble.

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) clinched the three provincial seats of Ainamoi, Wajir North and Emuhaya.

Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) won the Kilgoris seat near the Masai Mara game reserve, and was ahead in Nairobi's Embakasi constituency with counting still under way early on Thursday, officials said.

"We are very pleased to have won the three seats, this amounts to a landslide in election terms," ODM spokesman Salim Lone said.

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