Kenya's social media atweet with referendum chatter

Wed Aug 4, 2010 12:15pm GMT

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* Phones, Internet boost access to social sites

* Kenya pioneer in some mobile application innovations

By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura

NAIROBI, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Kenya's social media was abuzz with users urging their friends to vote peacefully in Wednesday's referendum, or keeping followers abreast with events throughout the east African country.

Some 12.5 million Kenyans have registered to vote in a plebiscite on whether to adopt a new constitution, which many hope will usher in good governance of the region's biggest economy and end years of legal impunity for its leaders.

Kenyans have been clamouring for a new constitution for decades, but rejected another document at a referendum in 2005.

"This is an emotional day for me, this vote is for my children, that they may grow and live in freedom from oppression, greed, corruption, torture, name it," Rhoda Igweta said on her Facebook page.

Kenyans were also using Twitter to send real-time updates to a website monitoring election incidents. (www.uchaguzi.co.ke) Continued...

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