KENYA:US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told leaders in Nairobi yesterday that "real powersharing" between the Kenyan government and the main opposition party was urgently needed to put the country back on track after the disputed election in December.
Dr Rice, who arrived in the capital yesterday morning to express support for mediation efforts led by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, said ordinary Kenyans expected more from their leaders and that "the time for a political settlement was yesterday".
President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have been criticised for their belligerent stances since the poll, which led to ethnic clashes and a police clampdown that have killed more than 1,000 people and left up to 600,000 homeless.
The violence has subsided over the past two weeks as people await the outcome of the Annan-led talks. But after agreeing measures to contain the clashes and address the humanitarian situation, and to an independent review of the election results, the negotiating teams have fallen out over the most crucial point: how to solve the political crisis.
"There needs to be a governance arrangement that will allow real power-sharing ... a grand coalition so that Kenya can be governed," said Dr Rice, who flew into Nairobi from Tanzania where she had been accompanying George Bush on his five-nation African tour.
Mr Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which has a majority in parliament and has accused the government of rigging the election, is in favour of powersharing. The party has dropped its initial demand for Mr Kibaki to step down, but wants Mr Odinga to be given a newly created prime minister's post with executive responsibility, and for the ODM to fill half the seats in the cabinet.
Mr Kibaki's Party of National Unity reacted angrily last week when Mr Annan talked of a "grand coalition" as his preferred solution. It maintains that the poll result was fair (even though no observer group, local or foreign, believes that to have been the case), and that Kenya's winner-takes-all electoral system makes no provision for shared power. Instead, Mr Kibaki has proposed giving the opposition some of the unfilled - and largely unimportant - cabinet positions.
His ministers have lashed out at western powers, especially Britain, the EU and the US, for insisting - as Dr Rice did again yesterday - that the government's preferred "business as usual" solution was not acceptable. Diplomats say Mr Kibaki's strategy of playing for time in the hope of entrenching his position as opposition anger dissipates is dangerous. There are reports that some militia groups that caused much of the initial ethnic violence and subsequent reprisals in western Kenya and Nairobi are restocking their arsenals.
"The ODM needs to be able to show something tangible to their supporters soon," said one European diplomat. "If not, the violence could easily restart and neither they [ the ODM] nor the government will be able to stop it."
The US and Switzerland have threatened travel bans on politicians seen as inciting violence or obstructing the peace talks, while Britain says it may use "smart sanctions" - such as asset-freezing and visa restrictions on family members - for anyone who sabotages the mediation.
Mr Annan, who has pledged to lead the mediation effort in Nairobi until a solution is found, sought to assure Mr Kibaki's government that despite all the diplomatic pressure, the international community was acting in Kenya's best interest. "No one is here to dictate," he said. "We are here in solidarity." -