Kenya election count set for tight finish Kenya's tense presidential election was heading for a nail-biting finish on Friday with Uhuru Kenyatta maintaining a lead as civil society activists, citing irregularities, filed an injunction in a bid to halt the count. Overnight Mr Kenyatta, son of the country's independence president, was for the first time since counting started on Monday pushed below the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a run-off next month. Raila Odinga, the prime minister and son of the vice-president at independence, surged back to within 3 percentage points as results poured in from his strongholds. But Mr Kenyatta's tally hovered around 50 per cent through Friday morning with about 20 per cent of constituencies left to declare. His Jubilee Alliance has already won a majority in both the Senate and the National Assembly in results that swept some old guard politicians away, and in one case saw a 19-year-old candidate win a seat in parliament. Mr Kenyatta has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his alleged role in marshalling death squads in post-election violence five years ago and a victory for him would herald a tricky period for the west's relations with one of its most strategic African allies. The court has set a July date for Mr Kenyatta's trial. His running mate, William Ruto, is also indicted at The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity. The two men are accused of organising fatal attacks on each other's supporters in 2008 and stood together in what some activists call a "coalition of the accused." The violence in 2008 was triggered by disputes over results and claims by Mr Odinga that he was robbed of victory through vote rigging. The electronic systems put in place this time to safeguard the vote count against fraud were plagued with technical problems by midweek, forcing the electoral commission to restart the count using paper tallies brought in from the constituencies. The delays and growing doubts about the integrity of the process have ratcheted up tension. At one point during the electronic counting the number of rejected votes was so high, at 330,000, that it could have changed the course of the poll by forcing a run-off. When the number dropped dramatically during the manual count, Issack Hassan, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, admitted a bug in the commission's database had been multiplying the number of rejected votes by a factor of eight. Peter Anyang" Nyong'o, secretary-general of Mr Odinga's ODM party, said the vote count had been so faulty that there could be neither "democratic winners nor democratic losers." HIs campaign complained on Thursday that it had evidence the results were being doctored and called for a halt to the count. But observers said it was significant that Mr Odinga himself has so far remained silent. Separately, civil society activists were cataloguing a string of alleged irregularities in the process. At daybreak on Friday they filed an injunction at the court of appeal calling for a last-minute suspension in the vote count. A statement from Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice, one of the groups behind the injunction, said the electoral commission had failed "to administer the elections in an accurate, accountable and impartial manner - in line with its guiding constitutional principles." The case was due to be heard on Friday, but could be forwarded to the supreme court, which is unlikely to hear the case before the results have been announced. A senior government official said that the leading candidates had been persuaded to broadcast messages of peace on Friday and had been made aware of the likelihood of a Kenyatta first-round victory. But it remained unclear whether Mr Odinga's alliance would concede defeat or attempt to challenge the results through the courts. Mr Hassan, of the electoral commission, has rejected allegations of rigging, and said there was no room in the procedures to "doctor" results.