Kenya Opposition Nixes Unity Government

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Sunday promised more rallies and again rejected an offer from the president to establish a national unity government as this East African nation struggled to contain deadly post-election violence.

Kenyans, meanwhile, prayed for peace and an end to the political deadlock as a relative calm descended following days of often ethnic-driven violence that left some 300 people dead. But the rallies planned for Tuesday and Odinga's refusal to share power raised the prospects of more violence.

Odinga, who claims President Mwai Kibaki rigged the Dec. 27 election that kept him in power, said there must be mediation instead of a unity government, and that Kibaki, ''cannot offer us anything because he did not win the election.''

On Saturday, Odinga indicated he was not willing to share power with Kibaki. But he demanded an international mediator, saying Kibaki should bring any proposals to the table. On Sunday morning, however, he said a unity government was out of the question.

The crisis has pitted Kibaki's Kikuyu people against Kenya's other tribes, and brought chaos to a country of 34 million people that had been one of East Africa's most stable democracies.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Kenya-Elections.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Electoral Commission scrambles frantically to find legal route to vote recount

By STAFF WRITER

... Kenya witnessed its worst political chaos last week claiming the lives about 200 people, leaving thousands homeless and seen property worth millions of shillings razed in an orgy of violence that erupted minutes after outspoken ECK chair Samuel Kivuitu declared Mwai Kibaki the winner and he was speedily sworn in as President.

The Commission is said to be urgently exploring the possibility of going to a constitutional court for orders allowing it to undertake an independent audit of the Presidential results tally ...

President Kibaki had initially even refused to meet international mediators such as South African Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu who waited patiently in Nairobi last week for an audience until Friday. But last Friday, he relented and vaguely hinted that he was not completely opposed to a coalition government. Bishop Tutu met Mr Odinga a day earlier ...

Nairobi was paralysed most of last week after the government banned a second rally called by the ODM in the capital’s Uhuru Park. An earlier meeting called by the group on Monday was stopped by the government, which plastered the streets of the capital with hundreds of anti-riot police and several contingents from the crack General Service Unit in a show of force that was largely wasted on rioting pro-opposition supporters who engaged the security men in a noisy standoff and running battles most of the day ...

http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/News/news070120083.htm

[otherlander]

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