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.
PHOTO: EPA
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elite may enable the politicians to ignore the deeper roots of the crisis such as land and wealth inequalities and an outdated constitution.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.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS