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Top US envoy to help in talks
Story by NATION Reporter
Publication Date: 1/4/2008
America’s top most official for Africa is due in Kenya today to
help set up talks between President Kibaki and his rival Raila
Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
At the same time, ODM have insisted their protest rally today will
go on at Uhuru Park, and that the rallies will continue until
President Kibaki concedes defeat.
US assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer is
expected to arrive in Nairobi later this afternoon to help bring
the two parties to a negotiation table. The US and the European
Union are understood to be pushing the ODM and President Kibaki’s
Party of National Unity (PNU) to settle for a form of a coalition
government as a way of settling the presidential election impasse.
ODM has ruled out joining any government of national unity set up
by President Kibaki, and are instead calling for a transitional
administration to clear the way for a rerun of the presidential
election in three months.
President Kibaki has this morning been in a meeting with South
Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and is also expected to hold
talks with ambassadors of foreign countries serving in Kenya.
On the other hand, Mr Odinga held talks with the German ambassador
Walter Linder at the party’s Pentagon House offices.
Nairobi woke up to an uneasy calm with Uhuru Park, the venue of
ODM’s banned rally, cordoned off by paramilitary police.
People and passenger vehicles have been allowed into the city
centre and many more business premises opened, but the situation
is likely to change once ODM leaders and supporters attempt to get
to the venue of their rally.
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