|
Nairobi: Kenya's president and future prime minister on Sunday haggled over a power-sharing cabinet, the heart of a deal to end a post-election crisis.
President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga met after their two camps disagreed over who would get which ministries, prompting both to say on Saturday that the cabinet would not be named as planned the next day.
Yesterday morning, Kibaki's side said the cabinet would be named but the opposition said it would not.
Pressure
At the appointed time for the announcement, the two leaders broke off their four-hour meeting for lunch.
They returned just over an hour later to resume what sources on both sides said was haggling over the division of ministries, and they were joined by political allies.
The cabinet was the key element of a deal brokered in February to end the east African nation's bloodiest political crisis, a post-election spasm of rioting and ethnic slaughter that killed at least 1,200 people and displaced 300,000 more.
The two leaders have been under heavy local and international pressure to break a month's deadlock over the cabinet. On Thursday they said they had agreed on how to share 40 ministerial jobs and pledged to name the cabinet yesterday.
Government spokesman Mutua said the talks were "proceeding very well" but the opposition was less sanguine.
|
