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Kenya expects deal next week

Top Kenyan negotiators, from left, Musalia Mudavaldi of the opposition Orange Democratic Party (ODM), Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula, Sam Ongeri of the Party of National Unity, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Sally Kosgey of ODM, meet at the Serena hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, on Friday. PHOTO: EPA

Negotiators for Kenya's rival political parties consulted their bosses yesterday and poured over a draft for a new prime minister's post to resolve a post-election crisis that has killed more than 1,000 people.

"The draft bill is being considered in smoke-filled rooms throughout the country," government negotiator Mutula Kilonzo said. "We should reach a deal by Wednesday latest."

Exhausted by the nearly two-month, post-election crisis, most of Kenya's 36 million people now want a quick political settlement between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga so the country can start returning to normal.

Kibaki and Odinga's teams have agreed in principle that they will create a new prime minister's post for the opposition, which accuses the government of stealing the vote by fraud.

Kilonzo said they had come up with a draft bill that would give the prime minister -- certain to be Odinga -- "substantial authority," including coordinating the work of ministries.

"I do not doubt we are going to have an agreement. What we cannot afford is to do this in a panic or under duress. If we do not do it well, it will blow up in our faces," he said.

Opposition officials could not be reached yesterday, but the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) wants a powerful premiership and a 50/50 role in cabinet.

It has expressed confidence a deal will be reached but also raised the stakes by threatening to resume street protests by Wednesday if its demands are not met.

Kilonzo said the ODM had dropped its demand for a new election within two or three years.

While there is enormous pressure for a political deal, analysts fear such a pact among Kenya's elite may enable the politicians to ignore the deeper roots of the crisis such as land and wealth inequalities and an outdated constitution.

On the street, many Kenyans share that skepticism.

"The politicians will be all right, of course, in their country clubs and big houses. They always are, aren't they?" said Jim Magoha, an ice-cream vendor in Nairobi. "How many of them know how we live, or have even seen the refugee camps?"

Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and Odinga's ODM were coalitions built up not on any major ideological differences, but along geographical lines involving alliances between different communities and parties.

African Union Commission chief Jean Ping on Friday pushed for a quick resolution of Kenya's political crisis.

"I am confident [of success]," Ping told reporters after meeting chief mediator and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, Kibaki and opposition ODM lawmakers.

"We hope that next week we will have something which would be agreed," Ping said.

Annan urged both Kibaki and Odinga to make firm decisions over the weekend to reach a deal when talks resume next week.

"While we made some progress today in the discussions on governance structures, the parties felt that there were still some issues on which they needed to consult their principals," he said in a statement. "I have asked them to do so over the weekend and to return on Monday prepared to conclude an agreement."

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday called for a "real ... not pretend" power-sharing deal in Kenya, in apparent criticism of the Kenyan president.

"I think ... there is nothing that is unbridgeable between these two sides," she told a press conference, referring to Kibaki and Odinga.
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