Kenyan PM skeptical about Zimbabwe election

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Free and fair elections in Zimbabwe are impossible while President Robert Mugabe controls the electoral process and rival Morgan Tsvangirai is in and out of jail, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said on Tuesday.

Odinga, in Washington for talks with U.S. officials and global lending agencies, said South Africa should speak out strongly against Mugabe and the international community should insist he step down.

Western critics and human rights groups accuse Mugabe of orchestrating a violent campaign to intimidate opposition supporters ahead of a June 27 election run-off.

"You cannot have free and fair elections while one party controls completely and monopolizes the instrument of power and ... Tsvangirai is in and out of police cells almost on a daily basis, when people are being arrested, people are being beaten up and homes are being burnt," Odinga told reporters.

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March election but failed to win the needed majority to avoid a runoff.

Odinga himself disputed the victory of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki in elections in December, which led to post-election violence in which 1,300 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced from their homes.

The two former rivals for the presidency formed a coalition government in April to end an impasse over the election.

Odinga said the situation in Zimbabwe was an embarrassment to the continent's efforts to promote democracy and is a problem that needs to be dealt with by African governments.

"Gone are the days when African leaders used to misrule their people and the rest of Africa was quiet under the guise of what was called non-interference," Odinga told a jam-packed room during a speech at Washington's Center for Strategic International Studies policy think-tank.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has been criticized for failing to intervene in Zimbabwe and take a hard line against Mugabe, who aided Mbeki's African National Congress in its struggle to end apartheid rule.

Odinga said the international community should deploy an international peacekeeping force to ensure that elections in Zimbabwe are free and fair.

Zimbabwe's opposition has said it fears Mugabe allies will rig the results of the run-off to extend his 28-year rule.

Some 66 supporters of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change have been killed since the disputed March elections, while Tsvangirai has said the election run-off should be called off because free and fair elections are impossible.

Odinga said he had been declared "public enemy No. 1" in Zimbabwe since he branded Mugabe a dictator earlier this month.

He said Mugabe may have led Zimbabwe to independence from British rule in 1980 but that did not "give him the title that he owns" the country.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Bill Trott)