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Kenyan opposition wants fresh
vote
Arab World
10. Feb. 2008
By Agencies
Kenya's opposition leader is demanding that the country's
incumbent president resign and new elections be held.
Raila Odinga
dropped his conciliatory stance on Saturday, putting to doubt
whether talks with Mwai Kibaki, the president, can end the
violence that has followed December’s disputed elections.
Kibaki "must step down or there must be a re-election - in
this I will not be compromised,'' Odinga shouted in front of
his supporters in his traditional power base of western Kenya.
Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement, spoke in
East Africa's common language of Swahili at the funeral of an
opposition politician killed in the violence. |
UN envoy Holmes visited
refugee camps on Saturday to assess the situation [AFP]
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Odinga, leader of the Orange
Democratic Movement, spoke in East Africa's common language of
Swahili at the funeral of an opposition politician killed in the
violence.
Only two days previously, Odinga said in the capital Nairobi that
he would not insist on Kibaki's resignation, asserting "we are
willing to give and take".
UN envoy
Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general who is mediating talks
between the government and opposition, said on Friday that a
power-sharing agreement was being drawn up.
He said he hoped to complete work on a settlement eary this week.
A UN envoy visited a refugee camp in Kenya, where people have fled
the violent fallout from the political turmoil.
John Holmes, the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, is on
a three-day visit to assess the situation in the region.
More than a thousand people have been killed following the
December 27 election, and 300,000 have fled to refugee camps.
The violence has invoked ethnic clashes and decimated the
country’s economy.
Foreign observers say that the elections were rigged.
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