President Mwai Kibaki is open to the idea of a coalition government to end Kenya’s post-election crisis but only if the opposition meets his terms, South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said on Friday.
”There is a great deal of hope,” said Tutu, trying to mediate to end turmoil that has killed more than 300 people and threatened one of Africa’s strongest economies.
Kenya won some respite from the violence on Friday as a planned opposition rally faltered.
”We’re tired, we’re not going to march,” said Samuel Muhati, a resident of the Mathare slum, where thousands of demonstrators battled police on Thursday. ”Let the fighting stop.”
Although Nairobi returned to some appearance of normality, with more traffic on the streets, police fired tear gas in the port of Mombasa to disperse about 200 Muslim anti-government demonstrators after Friday prayers.
France on Friday issued the strongest foreign criticism yet of the vote, backing opposition charges of fraud.
”Were the elections rigged or not? I think so, many think so, the Americans think so, the British think so, and they know the country well,” Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
Tutu said Kibaki was open to the idea of a coalition, but only when the opposition accepted government authority. He said there was hope for a solution because both sides were now open to negotiations, although with conditions.
The refusal of Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to talk to each other is at the heart of Kenya’s crisis and has provoked a flurry of mediation efforts.
Meanwhile, the opposition demanded a presidential re-run on Friday but the government stood its ground.
Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) said it wanted a fresh vote within three months.
Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua dismissed the opposition demand as blackmail, but added that a fresh election could be held under certain conditions.
”The government will never yield to blackmail. People should stop using violence as blackmail,” Mutua told reporters.
”If the court orders a re-run, it will be done, the president will accept a court order,” Mutua said. ”The government is going to operate according to the Constitution of Kenya.
United States Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer was due in Nairobi on Friday night to meet Kibaki and Odinga, who says he was robbed of victory in a December 27 vote to lead East Africa’s biggest economy.
”They have an opportunity to come together in some kind of arrangement that will help heal the wounds,” US President George Bush said.
Economic impact
The World Bank said the violence could hurt Kenya’s impressive economic gains — and harm countries in the region that rely on it as the region’s business and transport hub.
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are already suffering fuel shortages as the conflict chokes off supplies from Mombasa.
With the economic ramifications starting to sink in, stocks and currency trade restarted on Friday after being halted during Thursday’s street battles. But few brokers traded and they kept a wary eye on developments.
In Nairobi, police guarded Uhuru (Freedom) Park from dawn, where the protest was supposed to start at 10am local time.
But opposition leaders huddled in their headquarters, receiving visits from foreign diplomats, and exhausted supporters in the slums were largely staying at home.
Protesters battled for hours on Thursday to march on the park but were held back by police. Half a dozen people died, mostly in tribal killings in the slums.
About 100 000 people have fled their homes.
Kenyans grew increasingly impatient at Kibaki and Odinga’s failure to talk to end the violence.
”Despite the words of concern by both sides about the dangerous situation in Kenya and public statements that they are ready for dialogue, belligerence is still drowning out voices of reason,” said the Daily Nation newspaper.
The secretary general of the ODM said the party was demanding that Kibaki step down, an internationally recognised body mediate and a ”transitional arrangement” — not government — be set up prior to a new vote.
Such a vote should take place ”in no less then three months”, Anyang Nyong’o added, saying protests would continue.
Kenyans are aghast at the turmoil in a nation popular among tourists for its safaris and Indian Ocean beaches, and which is a major hub for the United Nations, diplomats, journalists, aid workers and others working around turbulent East Africa.
”Banana republic images on all major Western TV channels, newspapers and websites of bodies in morgues and of police violence and of tribal warriors wielding machetes and axes, are sickening and horrifying,” wrote commentator Fred Mudhai.
”If they don’t dialogue we down here continue to suffer,” said mechanic John Kopio, who has fled to the outskirts of Mathare slum after his house was ransacked. — Reuters