New cabinet spurs turmoil in Kenya

Fury as Kenyan leader names ministers

Mwai Kibaki. Photograph: Sayyid Azim/AP

The Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki, appointed half his cabinet just minutes before an African Union mediator landed in Nairobi today, enraging the opposition and ending hopes of a swift end to the country's political and social crisis.

Angry protests immediately broke out in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu and in Nairobi's slums, where hundreds of people have already been killed in the violence that followed a perceived stolen election.

Western diplomats, who on Monday had persuaded the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, to call off his campaign of mass action, were angered by Kibaki's decision to fill all the key ministries as peace talks were about to begin.

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Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, who is in Nairobi trying to encourage a power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Odinga, immediately sought an audience with the president at his State House residence to register her disapproval.

"This is a complete reversal of what the government had led us to believe would happen," a western diplomat in Nairobi said. "The level of tension is going to be ratcheted right up instantly."

Kibaki appointed 15 ministers - including those for finance, defence, internal security and justice - from within his own party, which won less than half the seats garnered by the opposition Orange Democratic Movement in the December 27 election.

Kalonzo Musyoka, the leader of a third, smaller opposition party, ODM-Kenya, was named as the vice-president and the minister for home affairs, while his fellow party member Samuel Poghisio was made minister of information.

The cabinet announcement was made on national television as John Kufuor, Ghana's president and the current head of the African Union, flew into Nairobi to try to broker a peace agreement.

"I have taken into consideration the importance of keeping the country united, peaceful and prosperous under a strong, broad-based leadership," Kibaki said in a brief, pre-written statement.

His intention to ignore attempts at outside help had been signalled earlier in the day when the government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, told the Standard newspaper that there was "nothing to be mediated".

"They [Kufuor and Kibaki] are age-mates and friends, and Kufuor is coming to have a cup of tea with him" Mutua said.

More than 500 people have died in violence and unrest since Kibaki was declared the winner of the election on December 30.

Local and international poll observers said the presidential results were not credible because of large irregularities in the tallying of votes at election headquarters.

On hearing that the cabinet would be appointed today, Odinga declined an invitation by Kibaki to attend reconciliation talks on Friday, saying it was a "public relations gimmick".

"This is simply another attempt to undermine the mission of John Kufuor," the opposition leader's spokesman, Salim Lone, said. "It's not only a blow to the peace process, it shows that Kibaki is has no intention of even starting the process."

Analysts agreed. Mutahi Ngunyi, a political scientist, said the move was in "bad faith". "He has already concluded peace talks before they have begun," he added.

Mwalimu Mati, a civil society leader, said the appointments - especially that of the internal security minister, George Saitoti, who is deeply unpopular in Kenya and was forced to resign a cabinet post in 2006 over links to the country's biggest-ever corruption scandal, was "like raising a red flag to a bull - and the bull is going to charge".

However, Amos Kimunya, a key Kibaki ally who was reappointed as the finance minister, denied the move would further alienate the opposition.

"The critical ministries of the government have to run," he told the Guardian. "Other players can join the government at a later stage, and the president can change his mind on his ministers any time."

Xan Rice in Nairobi
Tuesday January 8, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

 

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From AP

Kenya President Appoints Cabinet Members

By KATHARINE HOURELD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 8, 2008; 3:09 PM

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya's president named half his Cabinet Tuesday, angering opposition leaders who accuse him of stealing the recent election and undermining mediation attempts for a power-sharing agreement to end violence that has left more than 500 dead.

In the hours after President Mwai Kibaki announced his Cabinet appointments, police fired over the heads of youths who set up a roadblock of burning tires in the western town of Kisumu, according to a resident there. In Nairobi's oldest slum, Mathare, a witness reported hearing the first gunshots in three days just an hour after the announcement.

Political violence in some areas since the East African nation's disputed Dec. 27 presidential election had deteriorated into clashes between other tribes and Kibaki's Kikuyu, which has long dominated Kenyan politics and the economy.

Salim Lone, a spokesman for opposition leader Raila Odinga's party, repeated the party's call for no demonstrations, saying it did not want to undermine African Union-mediated talks expected to begin Wednesday.

"We think that the announcement of the Cabinet was a slap in the face for all the effort that Kenyans and the international community is making to avoid the crisis," Lone said.

Earlier Tuesday, Odinga rejected an invitation from Kibaki for talks, calling it "public relations gimmickry" and charging the president with "trying to deflect attention from and undermine" international mediation.

One proposed solution has been for Kibaki and Odinga to share power. But 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.

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 out of 210 parliament seats and Kibaki's party won 43 in legislative elections held the same day as the presidential vote, meaning it will be difficult for Kibaki to govern without making some overture to Odinga.

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.

Diplomatic efforts continued. The chairman of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, arrived on a mediation mission, and President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered support to the AU effort.

In the U.S., Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama, said the Democratic Party presidential candidate spoke by telephone with Odinga for about five minutes Monday before going into a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

Odinga said on British Broadcasting Corp. radio that Obama's father was his maternal uncle. He said Obama called twice "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 terrorist groups and has turned over dozens of people to the U.S. and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists. The country allows American military 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

 

 

About AU chairman John Kufuor

The African Union chairman arrived in Kenya on Tuesday to help end turmoil that has killed hundreds of people, but hopes of a swift breakthrough seemed to falter.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga has said mediation by AU chairman John Kufuor is the only way to end the chaos and has rejected bilateral talks with President Mwai Kibaki, dimming hopes for a breakthrough.
Here are some key facts on Kufuor, known as the gentle giant:
* Kufuor's victory in the 2000 presidential election against Jerry Rawlings' vice-president, John Atta Mills, gave the former British colony its first peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to another.
* Kufuor, born in December 1938, is a tall, affable Christian from the once dominant Ashanti tribe in the country's gold- and cocoa-producing economic heartland.
* Before entering politics, Kufuor obtained a law degree at Britain's Oxford University and started work as a private lawyer in 1965 in Kumasi, the main town of the Ashanti region. He was city manager and chief legal officer of Kumasi City Council from 1967 to 1969.
* Kufuor served as a junior foreign minister in a 1969-1972 civilian government sandwiched between two periods of military rule and was a member of Constituent Assemblies that wrote new constitutions in 1969 and 1979.
* He joined a 1982 Rawlings administration, with a local government brief, but resigned after seven months over political differences.
* He chaired his Ashanti Brick and Construction Company between 1973 and 1978 and was the chairman of one of Africa's best known soccer clubs, Asante Kotoko, from 1988 to 1991.
* Kufuor made his political comeback several years after Ghana's return to multiparty democracy in the early 1990s but lost the presidential election to Rawlings in 1996.
* Kufuor was however re-elected in December 2004, winning over 52 percent of the vote and thus avoiding a run-off.
* Towards the end of 2006, Kufuor accused Rawlings of plotting to overthrow his administration by staging a repeat of the military coup in 1981 which swept him to office.
* Last November, Kufuor escaped unhurt when a car crashed into his vehicle near the Kotoka International Airport in the capital Accra. It was his second lucky escape, as his convoy was also involved in an accident in April 2003. * Last weekend Kenya invited President Kufuor in his position as the AU chairman to visit and assess the situation.
-- Ethnic violence has nearly 500 people after the disputed Kenyan election on Dec. 27 in which incumbent President Kibaki was declared the winner despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging. (Writing by David Cutler; London Editorial