Kenya Expects Political Deal by Friday

[February 21, 2008]  NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A political deal to end Kenya's deadly postelection crisis is expected by Friday, with the two sides having "largely agreed" on a new government structure, officials said Thursday.

"I am beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel," former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is mediating the talks, said in a statement.

The Dec. 27 election, which foreign and local observers say was rigged, returned President Mwai Kibaki to power for a second five-year term after opposition leader Raila Odinga's lead evaporated overnight. The controversy has stirred up grievances over land and poverty that have bedeviled Kenya since independence in 1963.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in weeks of violence.

Mutula Kilonzo, a top government negotiator, said the two sides will "finish work, particularly on Agenda 3, by tomorrow." Agenda 3 refers to resolving the political crisis stemming from the election.

According to a statement from Annan's office, the two sides "outlined a joint proposal, that had been largely agreed, on the governance structure."

The two sides did not release details about the proposed government structure. But Odinga and his backers have indicated they want the president to share power, possibly through the creation of a prime minister's position.

Meanwhile, a think tank said Thursday that armed groups on opposite sides of the political and ethnic strife are mobilizing for new attacks and serious violence could erupt again if peace talks fail.

"Calm has partly returned but the situation remains highly volatile," the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report. "Armed groups are still mobilizing on both sides."

On Wednesday, the opposition threatened mass protests unless serious work to put power-sharing into the constitution starts within a week, a sign the country remains delicately balanced on the edge of violence.

Much of the bloodshed so far has pitted other ethnic groups against Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, long resented for dominating politics and the economy.

[Associated Press; By TOM MALITI]

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