Kenya will begin fresh registration of all voters next week after its botched 2007 election led to deadly protests, the Interim Independent Electoral Commission said on Friday.

East Africa's biggest economy disintegrated into bloody chaos after the poll when the current prime minister, Raila Odinga, said he had been cheated of an election win by President Mwai Kibaki.

Political analysts say Kenya needs reforms in its electoral regulation, and judiciary and police departments, to avoid a repeat of the violence that killed 1,300 people and displaced 300,000 others.

"This exercise is open to Kenyan citizens of 18 years and above, who are holders of either a Kenyan identity card or a valid Kenyan passport," the IIEC said in an advertisement in Kenyan dailies.

Kenyans will be have to surrender their old voter registration cards once they are on the new electoral roll.

A new constitution is one of a number of political reforms being implemented and Kenyans expect to vote on a constitution in June.

The next presidential and parliamentary election is scheduled for 2012.

Source: Reuters