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Kenya's president named half his Cabinet

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Tuesday, 08 January 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Kenya's president named half his Cabinet Tuesday, angering opposition leaders who accuse him of stealing an election and now undermining attempts to mediate a power-sharing agreement to end a crisis that has left more than 500 people dead.

In the hours after the Cabinet announcement, riot police fired over the heads of young people who had set up a road block of burning tires in the western town of Kisumu, according to a resident there. In Nairobi's oldest slum, Mathare, a resident said that an hour after President Mwai Kibaki announced his Cabinet, he heard his first gunshots in three days.

Political violence in some areas since the disputed Dec. 27 presidential election had deteriorated into clashes between other tribes and Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in politics and the economy here.

Salim Lone, a spokesman for opposition leader Raila Odinga's party, said the party repeated its call for no demonstrations, saying it did not want to undermine African Union-mediated talks expected to begin Wednesday.

Lone added, «We think that the announcement of the Cabinet was a slap in the face for all the effort that Kenyans and the international community is making to avoid the crisis.

Earlier Tuesday, Odinga rejected Kibaki's invitation to talks, saying it was «public relations gimmickry» and that Kibaki was «trying to deflect attention from and undermine» international mediation.

One proposed solution has been for Kibaki and Odinga to share power, but the Cabinet members Kibaki announced Tuesday, among them his vice president, included no portfolios for members of Odinga's party. Most posts went to members of Kibaki's party, though Kalonzo Musyoka, a minor presidential candidate who won just 9 percent of votes, was named vice president and another member of Kalonzo's party was named information minister.

Odinga's party won 95 parliament seats and Kibaki's party 43 in legislative elections held the same day as the presidential elections, meaning it will be difficult for Kibaki to govern without making some overture to Odinga.

Martha Karua, reappointed as justice minister Tuesday, said the opposition should take its complaints to the courts.

«I am certain they have no evidence upon which a credible court can nullify a Kibaki win,» she said.

Diplomatic efforts continued. The chairman of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, arrived on his mediation mission and U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama _ whose late father was Kenyan _ calling Odinga. U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered support to the AU effort.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the senator spoke to Odinga Monday afternoon for about five minutes before going into a rally in New Hampshire. Odinga said on British Broadcasting Corp. radio that Obama's father was his maternal uncle, and that Obama called him twice «in the midst of his campaigning ... to express his concern and to say that he is also going to call President Kibaki so that Kibaki agrees to find a negotiated, satisfactory solution to this problem.

Kenya is an ally in the United States' war on terrorism and has turned over dozens of people to the U.S. and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists. The country allows American forces to operate from Kenyan bases and conducts joint exercises with U.S. troops in the region.

The U.S. also is a major donor to Kenya, long seen as a stable democracy in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan. Aid amounts to roughly US$1 billion a year, said U.S. Embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling

Associated Press writers Michelle Faul, Tom Odula and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi contributed to this report.

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herbert - Kibaki is not interested in pe

| 86.16.104.xxx | 2008-01-08 21:00:07

Looking at all recent actions by the kenyan illegitimate president Mr. Mwai Kibaki, its clear he is not interested in peace. His interest is to remain in power.
However he going to fail miserably.
The oppostion won this election and anyone can see, i am shocked some world leadres who preach democracy everday cannot tell Kibaki this point. They have kept talking of a government of national coalition. Now that he has decided to appoint a cabinet he just slapped them in the face.
Bush, Brown and others come clean on Kenya.

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