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Kibaki, Odinga reach compromise
08/01/2008 10:18 - (SA)
Nairobi - Kenya's president and his chief rival made key concessions to end the dispute over the country's elections, calling off protests and agreeing to talks under pressure from the United States as the death toll from a week of violence reached nearly 500.
The top American envoy to Africa said the vote count at the heart of the dispute was tampered with and both sides could have been involved.
The December 27 election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power for another five-year term, with his rabble-rousing opponent, Raila Odinga, coming in second after his early lead evaporated overnight.
"Yes, there was rigging," the U.S. envoy, Jendayi Frazer, said in an interview on Monday in Nairobi, where she had been meeting with Kibaki and Odinga for the past three days.
'I'm not sure Kibaki won'
She added: "I mean there were problems with the vote counting process. Both the parties could have rigged." She said she did not want to blame either Kibaki or Odinga.
Kenya's electoral commission chairperson Samuel Kivuiti had himself said he was not sure Kibaki won, though the chairperson officially declared Kibaki the winner in the closest presidential election in Kenya's history.
The United States intervention appeared to be having an effect on the crisis, with both sides softening their tones since Frazer's arrival. Kenya was crucial to the US' war on terrorism.
Kenya had turned over dozens of people to the US and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists, allowed American forces to operate from Kenyan bases and conducts joint exercises with US troops in the region.
The US also was a major donor to Kenya, long seen as a stable democracy in a region that included war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan. Aid amounted to roughly $1bn a year, said embassy spokesman TJ Dowling.
Veterans arrive in Nairobi
Frazer said the violence "hasn't shaken our confidence in Kenya as a regional hub". Three former African heads of state had arrived in Nairobi.
Mozambique's Joachim Chissano said they would tour troubled slum areas on Tuesday, but would not say whether he, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania intended to try to mediate.
Chissano said: "It's like seeing a neighbour's house on fire. We are shocked by the events."
The violence had marked some of the darkest times since Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963, with much of the fighting degenerating into riots pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in politics and the economy.
An official in neighbouring Uganda said 30 fleeing Kenyans were thrown into the border river by Kenyan attackers, and were presumed drowned.
Two Ugandan truck drivers carrying the group said they were stopped on Saturday at a roadblock mounted by vigilantes who identified the refugees as Kikuyus and threw them into the deep, swift-flowing Kipkaren River, said Himbaza Hashaka, a Ugandan border official. The drivers said none survived, Hashaka said.
- AP
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