Kenya power sharing deal signed

In breaking news, a power sharing deal in Kenya has been signed between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the opposition leader.

The BBC reports: Details of the agreement have yet to be released, but correspondents say it appears to be a significant peace deal.

Things fall apart

There's one thing that's become eminently clear during the last few days: neither Mwai Kibaki nor Raila Odinga deserved to serve as dogcatcher, let alone president of the Republic of Kenya.

Over 300 people have been killed in post-election violence. And the toll mounts daily.

Odinga and his party accused Kibaki of stealing the election. Kibaki's hasty inauguration to pre-empt legal challenges only gave further credence to the accusations that his 'victory' was a fraud.

Odinga and his followers were little better. Odinga chose to inflame the already volatile situation by comparing the election to the rape of Kenyans. Meanwhile, his supporters did something far worse: they torched a church where dozens of suspected Kibaki supporters had taken shelter. 30 people were killed in the blaze.

The massacre brought back eerie memories of the genocide in Rwanda, where such atrocities were frequent.

The two parties traded charges of genocide.

Certainly, the election should be re-run. As National Public Radio noted:

The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

But that is no excuse for plunging the country toward the abyss.

The ethnic communities have lived in peace with each other for decades. Intermarriages are common. The only time there's ever been any problems have been during elections. They've been betrayed by their misleaders.

Nearly every country that borders Kenya (Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia) has suffered through brutal civil war and/or genocide in the last quarter century. Despite this, Kibaki and Odinga seem willing to risk this in order to get/keep the intoxicating drug called power.

And sadly, far too many Kenyans seem willing to kill and die for these 'men' who have proven they are traitors to the Kenyan nation.

124 dead in Kenya after Kibaki "wins" re-election

Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a controversial presidential election... and was sworn in for a second term almost immediately. Kenya's electoral commission claimed that Kibaki beat his main rival Raila Odinga by around 230,000 out of approximately 9.8 million votes cast, or a 2.4 percent margin of victory.

The result was denounced by Odinga's camp following claims of vote rigging. At least one polling station reported 115 percent voter turnout and another saw a candidate run away with ballot papers.

While Kibaki himself declared the election free and free, outside observers weren't so sure. The chief European Union observer said some doubts remained about the credibility of the election.

More disturbingly, at least 124 people have already died in clashes related to the election controversy.

The US ambassador to Kenya told CNN television called on Kenyans to refrain from violence. He pointed out that the country was governed by the rule of law and that people should take up their election protests via legal means.

However, this was undermined by the fact that Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in for his second term only an hour after the electoral commission announced the results. The ceremony was reportedly held in private and only in the presence a handful of western reporters and only a single Kenyan journalist.

If Kenya's governed by the rule of law, then the rule of law needs time to actually be applied. The fact that Kibaki was sworn in so hastily will surely be seen as an attempt to circumvent the rule of law and any potential legal challenges to his 'victory.' No court is going to overturn the victory of a president who's already been sworn in.

The decision to inaugurate Kibaki with record speed could have dangerous consequences, especially in a country where over a hundred people are already dead in election violence.

The hasty swearing in has only served to increase suspicion that the election was fixed. If Kibaki won fair and square, then surely he had nothing to fear from legal challenges.

Kibaki will surely call for peace and reconciliation but already aggrieved opponents will feel even more bitter that he prevented the legal process from running its course. In denying them legal avenues of protest, Kibaki's decision risks stirring more violence in his divided country.

I don't know if Mwai Kibaki and his party stole the election, but he's certainly acting like it.

Kenyan president vetoes anti-media bill

You don't see presidents in Africa vetoing bills that often. Usually, heads of state arrange it so they have supplicant majorities in the national legislatures to do their bidding. So kudos to Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki for vetoing a controversial media bill that most analysts considered to be draconian.

Kibaki came under heavy criticism last year when the government launched an armed raid on an independent media organization, notes VOA.

It added that previously, his wife Lucy Kibaki stormed into a newspaper office and harassed journalists on the eve of the World Press Freedom Day.

Proponents of the bill argued that the Kenyan media are abusing its newfound freedom, but opponents contended that the media needed to be free to sort these things out themselves.

Update: In a rather surprising move, at least from the outside, Kibaki's re-election bid has been endorsed by his predecessor Daniel arap Moi. One wonders if this poisoned chalice isn't a cloak-and-dagger attempt to undermine Kibaki's campaign.