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 Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts intensified to end the election dispute whose resulting violence has killed more than 500 people.
The opposition accuses Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 presidential vote, and Kibaki's chief rival Raila Odinga has rejected his invitation to talk. The chairman of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, was in Kenya to mediate, an effort supported by the U.S. and Britain.
With suitcases on their heads and frightened children grabbing at their skirts, ethnic Kamba women searched for transportation to get away from western Kisumu town, after one of their tribe was named vice president. Seven buses and two dozen cars overloaded with people who waited on a police escort to try to reach Nairobi.
On the road to the capital, dozens of angry youths brandishing sticks burned tires to block the route. "If elections fail, violence prevails!" they shouted.
Thousands of people from Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe have already been chased or burned out of their homes in Kisumu in a week of riots and ethnic clashes following the disputed elections.
Salim Lone, a spokesman for Odinga's party, said Kibaki's Cabinet announcement was "a slap in the face" and was intended to undermine the AU-mediated talks due to start Wednesday.
The Cabinet members announced by Kibaki, among them his vice president, included no portfolios for members of Odinga's party. Most posts went to members of Kibaki's party, although 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.
Late Tuesday, the government issued a statement saying there was room in the remainder of the Cabinet for opposition party members.
According to a Kenyan government Web site, Kibaki won 4,584,721 votes or 47 percent of the ballots cast, against Odinga's 4,352,993, or 44 percent.
However, even the chairman of the country's electoral commission has said he is not sure Kibaki won. The top American envoy to Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said this week that the vote count at the heart of the dispute was tampered with and both sides could have been involved.
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.
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.
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 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.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered support to the AU effort. Kufuor was meeting Wednesday with Odinga and was expected to also meet with Kibaki.
A group of four former African heads of state met with Kibaki on Tuesday and with Odinga on Wednesday.
"It is time to say enough, no more violence ... enough is enough," former President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique said at a joint news conference with Odinga.
Odinga said he had told the statesmen that "We want peace to return to our country ... There cannot be lasting peace without justice."
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama -- whose late father was Kenyan
-- called Odinga to urge a peaceful resolution. 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 $1 billion a year, said U.S. Embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling
[Associated
Press; By KATHARINE HOURELD]
Associated Press Writers Michelle Faul, Tom Odula and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi and Katy Pownall in Kisumu contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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