Kenyan leaders in fresh bid to break stalemate over cabinet
Nairobi, Kenya - The waiting continued Sunday for Kenya's power-sharing cabinet as President Mwai Kibaki deferred the naming of the ministers, after four hours of talks with his Prime Minister-designate, Raila Odinga, on the distribution of the posts.
President Kibaki took an hour's break after holding the talks with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader, Odinga, on the formation of the coalition government in line with National Reconciliation Act, signed on 28 February, ending the country's stalemate.
The formation of the power-sharing cabinet is seen as the most crucial step towards setting off Kenya on the path to community reconciliation after months of a political standoff that was triggered by the 27 December presidential polls.
"President Kibaki and Raila have taken a short break and are resuming discussions at 1600 local time," Kenyan Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua said on Sunday.
He said the meeting between Kibaki and Raila went on well.
The two sides announced on Thursday that they had struck an agreement on all outstanding issues regarding the size and composition of the cabinet.
Earlier, it was understood that Odinga had backed down on his party's demand for the Finance Ministry, in exchange for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ODM also wants Local Government, Energy, Transport and Health.
President Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU), whose ministers already occupy the ministries in question, have put up a spirited opposition to the possibility that the ODM Nominees could take over those ministries.
PNU has agreed to offer ODM what experts have termed as 'peripheral ministries' including Culture, Sports, Youth, Immigration, Industry and Arid Lands.
The sharing of the ministries is reflected in the Reconciliation Accord, in a clause which directs that the PNU and ODM will be equal partners and will form a coalition government reflecting their parties' parliamentary strength and portfolio balance.
Odinga's Orange Party has insisted that if his ministers do not get the posts he has demanded, the party would not accept the new cabinet.
"They want to have everything, they want us to be passengers in the new government," the Sunday Standard quoted Odinga as saying over the new cabinet deadlock.
Odinga's Party said on Saturday that its list of ministries was as far as it would compromise on the cabinet, having given in to PNU's demands for the expansion of the cabinet to include 40 ministers, against the popular demand of Kenyans.
On Saturday, the civil society threatened to hold streets demonstrations to block regional leaders from attending the inauguration of the new cabinet and the swearing in of the Prime Minister unless the cabinet is reduced to 24 ministers.
The government has defended the intended formulation of the bloated cabinet, Kenya's largest since independence in 1963, citing the need to have an inclusive cabinet.
"We would be swallowed alive. We cannot go telling the other communities that want to be included in the cabinet that the civil society has said the cabinet has to remain lean," Mutua said on Friday.
President Kibaki and Odinga called in senior politicians from their respective sides to hold a joint meeting on Sunday as they took a break from the negotiating tables.
Nairobi - 06/04/2008
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