Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki appeared set on Wednesday to name a new government to replace the Cabinet he fired en masse last month after the embarrassing rejection of a new Constitution he backed.
As the clocked ticked down on a December 7 deadline Kibaki gave himself to appoint a new slate of ministers, Kenya’s media was awash in furious speculation over the line-up, reporting last-minute hitches and intrigue.
The expected announcement is hoped to bring an end to a two-week crisis of authority in the East African nation that was thrown into political limbo when the draft charter was voted down in a November 21 referendum.
The rejection of the charter was a blow to Kibaki who had urged its adoption, and was seen by his foes and many observers as a vote of no-confidence in the lacklustre performance of his nearly three-year-old administration.
Leading dailies said the president had planned to name a government of national unity on Tuesday but was forced to call it off when some opposition lawmakers refused to accept posts in the new Cabinet.
The reports drew a blistering response from Kibaki’s office which categorically denied the accounts in a brief statement under the heading ”Avoid Lies”.
”Kenyans should expect that the president will name the Cabinet when he is ready,” government spokesperson Alfred Mutua told a news conference called to discuss national park entrance fees that was instead dominated by politics.
”It’s still a long day to go,” he said, allowing that Wednesday was the deadline for the appointments.
On November 23, a day after conceding defeat in the vote, Kibaki sacked his deeply divided Cabinet — an unprecedented move for a Kenyan leader — and said he would chose a new team within two weeks.
He then indefinitely suspended the scheduled late November re-opening of Parliament a bid to re-assert his political authority.
But Kibaki rejected opposition demands for him to dissolve Parliament and call snap polls ahead of the next general elections set for 2007 and then banned rallies it had planned to press its case.
Last week, the opposition dropped its call for early elections and instead urged the president to recall Parliament next month to begin work on drafting a new Constitution that would be more acceptable to the public.
Opponents of the draft, including dissident ministers in the former Cabinet, had fought against its adoption as it retained near absolute powers in the office of the president and defied popular demands for significant authority to be devolved to a prime minister. – Sapa-AFP