African Press International (API)

Last night, the ripple effect of the delay started to be felt, with the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee being the first casualty. Members of the team announced that talks had been suspended until a coalition Cabinet was named.

“Our work would be superfluous if there is no Coalition Cabinet in place,” was the committee understanding as it took the break.

New salvo On Wednesday, with no clear signs that a Cabinet would be named anytime soon and with the terms “lean, clean and real” being bandied around by both sides in apparent reference to their preferred ideal Cabinet, ODM fired another potentially crippling salvo.

The Orange party declared there would be no deal if anyone (read PNU) tried to lock out Eldoret North MP and Pentagon member, Mr William Ruto, from the much-awaited Cabinet.

But an international community that has for some time watched the stalemate from the sidelines appeared poised to return to the centre stage with a coded warning.

Sources told The Standard a number of foreign diplomats based in Nairobi met on Tuesday and discussed the stalemate ahead of a news conference by Mr Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador to Kenya.

This came on the same day Annan forcefully stepped back into the fray with an unequivocal demand for portfolio balance.

“The two leaders must implement both the spirit and the letter of the agreement signed and resolve the issue of the number and the composition of the Government expeditiously,” the former UN secretary-general, who brokered the much-touted political settlement told President Kibaki and Raila, the two leaders at the centre of a disputed presidential election that plunged the country into a crisis of an unprecedented scale.

Annan told President Kibaki and Raila, the Prime Minister-designate, that they had no alternative but to share power equally on the basis of appropriate portfolio balance.

Annan said he was concerned by the failure to compose and announce the coalition government. He drew the attention of Kibaki and Raila to the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement signed on February 28.

“I hope the Kenyan people will not be kept in suspense for much longer,” Annan said of the stalemate that hinges around a demand by PNU to have a 44-member Cabinet against ODM�s one of 34.

Meanwhile, Kibaki spent the better part of Wednesday locked in a meeting with Internal Security minister, Prof George Saitoti, and Head of Civil Service, Mr Francis Muthaura, at his Harambee House office. The meeting went into the night with the Attorney-General, Mr Amos Wako, joining them shortly before 7pm.

Breaking his 35-day silence since he brokered the historic National Peace Accord between Kibaki and Raila which they signed on February 28 to end a month of post-election blood-letting, Annan told the two principals they must treat each other as equal partners.

“The Cabinet will be shared equally with appropriate portfolio balance to enable each party to see itself as playing an equal role with the other partner,” Annan emphasised in a statement sent from his office in Geneva and read by his spokesman, Mr Nasser Ega-Musa.

Ranneberger added more embers to the political impasse, warning that future engagements between Nairobi and Washington were dependent on an acceptable grand coalition, which should be formed immediately to end national stress and anxiety.

“We are not trying to set deadlines, but the formation of coalition government needs to be done with a sense of urgency. We certainly feel that it is important that the talks be concluded with a sense of urgency. The sooner that coalition government is in place the better,” Ranneberger said.

The US ambassador regretted that the composition of a coalition Cabinet was taking unnecessarily long and subjecting Kenyans to anxiety and uncertainty.

Said he: “It has not happened as quickly as some people expected and there is temptation to see this as a crisis. It is not a crisis. The coalition government has taken too long and Kenyans have sent a message to these people that enough is enough.”

But the Government absolved itself from blame over the delay in naming the Cabinet.

Information minister, Mr Samuel Poghisio, instead accused ODM of bogging down the process.

“In fact, it is the Government coalition that has been prodding ODM to give names to the President,” Poghisio told journalists in his office last evening.

No Ruto. No deal Earlier in the day, 20 ODM MPs, led by Mr Najib Balala, raised the temperatures in the political jam when they warned that attempts by President Kibaki to vet the party list of preferred (proposed) Cabinet members would be countered.

“No Ruto! No deal! We will not accept the alleged vetting of ministers proposed by Prime Minister-designate, Mr Raila Odinga,” Balala said of remarks that seemed to point at Ruto.

Besides threatening to frustrate further talks with the PNU side over Ruto and jolt the power-sharing agreement, ODM said they would accept nothing less of a 50-50 power sharing at the Cabinet level, permanent secretaries, ambassadors and State corporation chief executives.

ODM demanded that PNU surrenders Finance and Local Government portfolios if it (PNU) insisted on retaining Internal Security, Defence and Foreign Affairs dockets.

“If they take Internal Security, Defence and Foreign Affairs, they must relinquish Finance and vice versa. There is no joke about power-sharing,” Balala said.

Reports by David Ohito, Lucianne Limo, Abiya Ochola and Peter Opiyo