Kenyan parties make progress in talks

KENYA: Kenya's feuding political parties have agreed to rewrite the country's constitution within a year but have yet to agree terms for power-sharing, a government negotiator said yesterday.

The announcement came after two days of closed-door talks mediated by former UN chief Kofi Annan and aimed at resolving the crisis that followed President Mwai Kibaki's disputed December 27th re-election.

More than 1,000 people have died and 300,000 have been driven from their homes in the ensuing violence.

"Both parties reached agreement on a wide-ranging sphere of issues affecting the country . . . among them being to write a new constitution within a year," government negotiator Mutula Kilonzo said. But the two sides had yet to strike a deal on the major outstanding issue - the structure of the government.

Mr Annan had hoped to forge a final political solution this week, but the talks are set to reconvene on Monday.

Mr Kilonzo said the parties had agreed on "serious constitutional, legal and institutional reforms" in a four-page document, but gave no further details.

Critics of the government say the president wields too much power under the current constitution, from setting the parliamentary timetable to appointing electoral commissioners.

In a bid to shore up Mr Annan's mission, US president George Bush has asked secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to go to Kenya to tell its leaders there must be a return to democracy.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga accuses Mr Kibaki's team of rigging the vote, while Mr Kibaki says he won fairly.

Both sides have agreed in principle to some form of power-sharing and have been focusing on the details in private. "Optimism is not the same as reality, but we are making progress," justice minister Martha Karua told reporters yesterday.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times