Kenya president ready to cooperate

Kenya’s president is ready to form “a government of national unity” to help resolve disputed elections that caused deadly riots, a government statement said today.

The statement did not explain what such a power-sharing arrangement might involve.

President Mwai Kibaki made the statement to Jendayi Frazer, the leading US diplomat for Africa, according to the director of the presidential news service, Isaiya Kabira.

Kabira said he could not say whether that was a formal offer to opposition leader Raila Odinga, who accuses Kibaki of stealing the December 27 elections that international observers say had a deeply flawed vote count.

Frazer, who met Odinga earlier today, would be meeting again with Odinga, Kabira said, implying she might be carrying a message from Kibaki.

Odinga told a news conference he had not received any formal offer from the government, but added ``Let them put that on the table when we are negotiating.''

He declined to say what his response would be.

Odinga’s spokesman, Salim Lone, said the opposition leader in talks with Frazer repeated his demand for a rerun of the December 27 vote, but offered few other details.

On Friday, Odinga called for a transitional government to organise a new election, but Kibaki said a rerun could be ordered only by the High Court.

There was no immediate statement from Frazer on her 90-minute meeting with Kibaki or her talks with Odinga.

Kabira read a government statement that quoted Frazer as saying that “by extending an olive branch to the opposition, President Kibaki had shown his commitment to ending the political impasse”.

“She expressed optimism that all concerned parties will work together toward restoring normality in Kenya.”

The statement said Kibaki reiterated his readiness to work with all involved parties.

“The president said he was ready to form a government of national unity that would not only unite Kenyans but would also help in the healing and reconciliation process,” the statement said.

South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu held talks with Kibaki and Odinga on Friday and said both “indicated they are open to the possibilities of negotiations”.

Some 300 people have been killed and 100,000 made homeless in violent protests and clashes since the vote. The turbulence has taken an ugly ethnic twist, with other tribes pitted against the president’s Kikuyu people, and brought chaos to a country once considered an island of stability in violence-plagued East Africa.

Today residents of Mathare slum battled with machetes. Police who tried to intervene were surrounded by an angry crowd and had to flee with the wounded. One man had half his leg hacked away and two others appeared seriously injured.

Trouble has spread from Nairobi, the capital, to the western highlands and to the coast. In the coastal tourist city of Mombasa today, police fired tear gas in a bid to disperse protesters for a second day running.

“Kibaki must go!” the scores of demonstrators shouted.

Thousands in the capital’s slums, meanwhile, have lined up for food after days of riots left them cut off.

The UN World Food Program said it was scrambling to take food to 100,000 displaced people in the Rift Valley. The agency said trucks were slowed because of insecurity.

Food shortages in Mombasa caused prices to rise. The cost of a loaf of bread more than doubled to 70 shillings (about 50p), said Michael Musembi, who sells wood carvings.

France’s foreign minister said that the Kenyan elections “were totally rigged”.

Bernard Kouchner, speaking on France’s RTL radio Friday, did not say what evidence he had for that conclusion, but said it was shared by “the Americans, the British, who know the country well”.

Attorney General Amos Wako has called for an independent investigation of the vote counting. The call from Wako, who is considered close to Kibaki, was a surprise and could reflect the seriousness of the rigging allegations.