Angry opposition youths oppose Kenya compromise

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Kenya Monday to press for a power-sharing agreement.

from the February 19, 2008 edition

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Sharing power is key to a peace deal

On Friday, Mr. Annan announced a 10-point plan for electoral and constitutional reform agreed to by both sides.

But there was no word on the crucial question of a deal to share power.

Ms. Rice spent an hour Monday being briefed by Annan ahead of meetings with Odinga and Kibaki.

"There needs to be a governance agreement that allows real power sharing, that will allow a coalition – a grand coalition – so that Kenya can be governed," she said.

The two sides are deadlocked over a new position of prime minister, which probably would be offered to Odinga.

Opposition supporters want the position to assume much of the president's executive powers, but Kibaki's government sees the prime minister as a much more modest position.

Meanwhile, the international community is doing its best to keep pressure on the rivals to reach an agreement.

The US, Britain – Kenya's former colonial ruler – and several other countries are considering travel bans and asset freezes for individuals implicated in stoking violence.

Kibaki has tried to maintain a policy of "business as usual" since being sworn in at the end of December, playing down the scale of the crisis and cementing his position as head of state.

That leaves Odinga as the key to a deal, says Philip Ochieng, a columnist with The Daily Nation newspaper.

"There's intransigence on both sides – but especially on the government side," he says. "So it seems it's up to [Odinga] to save the country by yielding more ground."

But Odinga's supporters are not making it easy for him to yield, and there's no telling how they'll react if Odinga signs an agreement that they think gives Kibaki too much power

Whatever happens during the political talks, Kenya will be left with open wounds that need long-term solutions.

Thousands of Kikuyus have been forced to flee towns in the western Rift Valley, a process described as "ethnic cleansing" by Jendayi Frazer, Washington's top Africa official.

It will take a year for some of the people displaced by violence to return home, says Sir John Holmes, the UN's most senior humanitarian official.

"There needs to be a very major effort to reconcile communities, to get them to start talking to each other, to address some of the problems between them in ways that do not involve them driving each other out with machetes and bows and arrows," he said after returning from a recent tour of the trouble spots. "That's a long-term effort."

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