14 April 2008
Nairobi — It's a deal.
President Mwai Kibaki named rival Raila Odinga as prime minister yesterday, implementing a power-sharing deal after protracted negotiations over the agreement they signed more than a month ago.
Mr Kibaki named a 40-member power-sharing cabinet ending weeks of deadlock that threatened the country's economic recovery after a deadly post-election crisis.
Mr Kibaki had on Saturday reached a deal in a secret meeting with his political rival Raila Omolo Odinga, whom he confirmed as prime minister to head the cabinet.
"I am today announcing the cabinet of the grand coalition government," Mr Kibaki said in a live televised speech alongside Mr Odinga.
"I want to thank you, my fellow Kenyans, for your tolerance and patience during this period... I'll do everything possible to ensure that our country Kenya is steered along the path of peace, unity and stability."
The naming of a coalition cabinet is central to a deal ending the east African nation's post-election crisis. At least 1,500 people died and about half a million displaced across the country of 36 million between January and February in what became the country's bloodiest episode independence in 1963. Many thousands have yet to return to their homes.
"Let us all work, and God will bless us, I am sure," said Mr Kibaki after naming the cabinet. Finance Minister Amos Kimunya retained his position in the new cabinet.
Mr Kibaki also named Mr Musalia Mudavadi, Mr Odinga's number two in the Orange Democratic Movement as deputy prime minister. Also named as a deputy prime minister is Uhuru Kenyatta, an ally of Mr Kibaki and a son of Kenya's independence hero and first president Jomo Kenyatta.
The Cabinet posts are divided equally between Mr Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and allied parties, and the ODM, which is one of the key provisions in the power-sharing deal the President and Mr Odinga signed on February 28.
Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga had said they would announce a new Cabinet on April 6, but they did not do so after failing to reach agreement on how to divide the cabinet.
Odinga's ODM party had suspended talks with Mr Kibaki on Tuesday, saying the President must first dissolve the Cabinet that existed then and share the posts equally.
They were expected to announce a new coalition government once Parliament passed laws to legalise the power-sharing deal in March.
But the rivals did not work out how to implement the accord, with both sides trying to secure the most powerful positions in a new cabinet.
Violence exploded after Mr Odinga accused Mr Kibaki, Kenya's longest-serving politician, of rigging his re-election at the December 27, 2007 vote that was Kenya's closest-ever presidential poll.
The electoral fight degenerated into ethnic killings and riots that shattered Kenya's image as a stable tourism and trade hub, with one of sub-Saharan Africa's most promising economies.
Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga agreed in February to share power after weeks of deadly violence.
But they had to work out how to implement the accord, with both sides trying to secure the most powerful positions in a new cabinet.
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