PNU IS A STUMBLING BLOCK TO KENYA'S PEACE

The PNU allied MPs are opposed to any form of power sharing as a way of ending the current political crisis.

Talks resumed at a slow pace Tuesday with reports of major rifts between PNU and ODM teams. The negotiators failed to agree on a power-sharing or a coalition deal favoured by majority of Kenyans and the international community. Any reasonable sane- Kenyan will tell you that it is the best alternative to the current crisis. PNU are said to have insisted that ODM should accept that Mr. Kibaki won the elections. A stand they have taken from the beginning.

There are reports that PNU is determined and seem to think that they can ride this crisis long enough or until ODM steam wears out. Western diplomats agree and say openly that Kibaki's strategy of playing for time in the hope of entrenching his position as opposition anger dissipates is dangerous.

There are also reports that militia groups that caused much of the initial ethnic violence and subsequent reprisals in parts of Rift Valley, Nakuru, kisumu, coast, western and other areas including Nairobi are restocking their arsenals in readiness to the unacceptable outcome.

PNU were quoted as saying that "the President would use his generosity and mercy" to appoint a number of ODM MPs to the Cabinet. And ODM must be grateful, start behaving appropriately and know there's a government in Kenya. The party should agree that Kibaki won.

The MPs from PNU and its affiliates, including ODM-K said their rivals in ODM should be fitted in Government without sharing power with Mr. Kibaki. "This has happened before," Garsen MP Danson Mungatana, who is the secretary for PNU MPs, told the press in Nairobi. He was speaking on the MPs' behalf after they held a meeting at Parliament Building, during which they were briefed on the progress of the talks led by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.

The idea of power-sharing was first floated by Mr Annan and his team of eminent persons, and it has since been backed by world powers, including the US.
Mr. Kalonzo Musyoka led the PNU negotiators to the meeting with the MPs where the power-sharing proposal was discussed. The PNU-allied MPs, a source said, also expressed concern at the proposal to create the office of executive prime minister.

They claimed the idea of sharing power was being foisted on Kenya by Western powers keen on safeguarding their own interests. The MPs told the PNU Government negotiators to be firm, saying that the Annan team appeared to be too demanding. They complained that Mr.Kibaki appeared to be soft and needed to stand up to the super powers.

But Mr. Annan, who has pledged to lead the mediation effort in Nairobi until a solution is found, sought to assure Mr. Kibaki that despite all the diplomatic pressure, the international community was acting in Kenya's best interest. "There are political leaders who are unhappy by what they see as international interference," he said. "No one is here to dictate. We are here in solidarity."