US: Kibaki and Raila should share power

Story by LUCAS BARASA
Publication Date: 2/18/2008
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked Kenya’s President Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga to speedily agree to a power-sharing arrangement under a grand coalition to restore the country’s stability.
The top US diplomat said last year’s General Election results did not reflect the will of Kenyans and that the two should in meantime bury their differences, share power and let the flawed polls be addressed in a different fora.
Dr Rice, who arrived in the country in the morning to deliver a message from President George Bush said: “There is need real power-sharing arrangement that will allow a grand coalition.”
Speaking after meeting chief mediator Kofi Annan in Nairobi, she said the US wanted to deal with a “stable, legitimate Kenyan government that enjoyed the confidence of Kenyans.”
She is also due for talks with President Kibaki and Mr Odinga later today.
The US’s, Dr Rice said, was a strong message that people of Kenya expected President Kibaki and Mr Odinga to move fast resolve the crisis in the country.
“Kenyans expect their leaders to overcome their differences and agree on a system of government for stable and prosperous Kenya,” she said at Serena Hotel in Nairobi.
President Kibaki, the envoy said, should take the “last step” and agree on governance as Kenyans “want to move forward.”
Kenyans, she said, want the government to return to the “business of governance.”
She said President Bush spoke to Mr Annan on Sunday night and assured him of US support for the ongoing negotiations to find a way out of the political crisis in the country.
The former United Nations secretary general Mr Kofi Annan is the leading the talks to mediate between President Kibaki’s Party of National Unity and Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Party. Other members of his panel of Eminent Persons are former Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa and former South African first lady Graca Machel.
In the mediation talks, the PNU is represented by Cabinet ministers Martha Karua, Sam Ongeri, Moses Wetangula and Mbooni MP Mutula Kilonzo. The ODM side include former Vice-President Musalia Mudavadi, MPs William Ruto, Sally Kosgei and James Orengo.
Dr Rice who said she had also held discussions with European countries colleagues, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and African Union chairman Mrisho Kikwete and that they fully supported the Annan talks.
“They fully supported by the international community,” she said.
During her meeting with President Kibaki and Mr Odinga, she added, she was to tell them “Kenyans want to move forward.”
She said last year’s polls were difficult for Kenyans and that the elections did not produce the outcome “needed by Kenyans.”