Kenya's general election opened on a tense note Monday with the killing of four police officers in the port city of Mombasa as voters queued to cast their ballots, some five years after polls ended in bloodshed.
Coastal Provincial Police Chief Aggrey Adoli blamed the attack on the Mombasa Republican Council, a separatist movement that has threatened to disrupt the elections.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta are the frontrunners among eight presidential candidates. President Mwai Kibaki is stepping down after reaching the two-term limit.
Kenyatta and his vice-presidential running mate William Ruto are among four people indicted by the International Criminal Court for their alleged role in orchestrating the ethnically driven violence after a disputed Kibaki-Odinga runoff vote in 2007.
More than 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced before Kibaki and Odinga reached a power sharing deal in early 2008.
Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's founding leader Jomo Kenyatta, is to stand trial along with Ruto in April on charges of crimes against humanity.
The United States and several European Union nations have warned of consequences if either is elected.
Nearly 100,000 security personal were deployed across the country.
Some 14.3 million people are registered to cast their ballots for president, parliament and local officials at 24,558 polling stations, according to the electoral body.
Voters are electing 290 National Assembly representatives and numerous local officials.
High unemployment, chronic poverty and an infrastructure deficit is among the main issues facing the East African nation of some 43 million people.
In the west of the country, US President Barack Obama's half-brother Malik Obama is standing for the post of governor of Siaya, the county where their father Barack Obama Sr was born and raised.
Malik Obama focused his campaign squarely on poverty eradication and infrastructure development.
Results are expected by March 11, though provisional results could be released within 48 hours of polls closing. A presidential run-off vote is set for April if no candidate wins an outright majority.