Anthony Kariuki
13 April 2008
Nairobi — President Kibaki is set to name a Coalition Cabinet after finally agreeing a power sharing list with Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga.
The President will unveil the much-awaited Cabinet at State House, Nairobi at 4pm.
This follows day-long consultations that the President Kibaki held with Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga at Sagana state lodge on Saturday.
A statement released by the Presidential Press Service said: "A breakthrough was made in the talks and President Kibaki and Hon Raila agreed to the announcement of the Cabinet today."
President Kibaki and Raila met from noon in a closed door meeting that lasted till 6 pm.
In a break from previous meetings, no politicians were in attendance.
Head of the Civil Service Francis Mutharua and Mohammed Isahakia of the Orange Democratic Movement accompanied the two leaders.
Saturday's meeting was the first since talks collapsed after disagreements arose over sharing out of ministries.
ODM withdrew from the talks and blamed PNU over failure on portfolio balance. The party said it had reached an "irreducible minimum" after ceding powerful dockets of Finance, Defence, Internal Security and Justice and Constitutional Affairs to PNU.
ODM then lay claim to key ministries of Foreign Affairs, Local Government, Energy, Roads, Transport and a new docket, Cabinet Affairs but PNU refused to yield these ministries.
The stalemate was blamed on hardliners from both sides.
There has been renewed tension in the country that a new wave of violence was likely to arise following the deadlock.
In the past week, violence has been witnessed in Nairobi's Kibera slum, located in Raila's constituency, and his rural backyard of Kisumu over the delayed naming of the Cabinet.
The ODM leader is set to be named as Prime Minister when the new Government is unveiled. The President will also name two deputy premiers from each side.
The ODM leader will become only the second person to hold the PM office after President Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, briefly occupied the office after Kenya gained Independence from Britain in 1963.
The breakthrough comes against a backdrop of sustained pressure from the International Community, the Church, civil society, politicians and the Kenyan public on the two leaders to agree on a final list.
Kenya was thrown into a political turmoil after the December 27 presidential election failed to produce a clear winner. The violence that followed left more than 1,000 people dead, over 350,000 displaced and property worth billions of shillings destroyed.
It took the intervention of the international community, acting through the African Union, to broker a peace deal between the two leaders in an effort led by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
The announcement will come as a relief to the thousand of Inernally Displaced Persons (IDPs) -uprooted from their homes after violence broke out in the wake of disputed presidential results - living in tented camps countrywide, who are keen on a political settlement so that they return to their homes.
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