Word: odinga
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...expected, President Mwai Kibaki named opposition leader Raila Odinga to the new post of Prime Minister. More dramatically, Kibaki and Odinga - who accused the President of rigging a December 27 election - managed to agree on how to parcel out posts in a new Cabinet equally among their allies. While Kibaki's team retained most of the powerful posts, including finance and foreign affairs, Odinga's allies in the Orange Democratic Movement got several choice spots as well. Musalia Mudavadi, Odinga's No. 2, was named deputy prime minister, as was a prominent Kibaki ally, Uhuru Kenyatta, son of independent Kenya...
However, in the end, when they could not entirely agree, Kibaki and Odinga decided to create more ministries, expanding the number from 34 to 42. Some seemed questionable, There is not only a ministry for development, but now a ministry for Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands. Nairobi, which already has its own city government, will get a new federal ministry, too. The country will also get a ministry for "Planning and Vision 2030," whose tasks are so far undefined...
...blunt: "Kenyans welcomed the apparent agreement, though their media ridiculed the prospect of a Cabinet of 40 thieves. We're still keen to work with a genuine power-sharing government, but we'll watch closely how efficiently and transparently it uses resources." Kenyans will be watching whether or not Odinga and Kibaki will actually share power. They remember 2005, when Kibaki dismissed many members of his Cabinet - including Odinga - because it was riven by internal strife. The political deal has brought many of those same faces back to power. "What we are seeing is not a new situation," says Barasa...
...going to share power equally, you have to have genuine power-sharing," Odinga spokesman Salim Lone said. "One side can't have the most crucial ministries and the other gets what's left over...
...dollars it would cost would be better spent on helping the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the violence. But adding new ministries is not a move to make government more efficient; it's a mechanism aimed at satisfying the demands of the competing ethnic-political factions. Yet Odinga himself is pleading for calm, and neither side has given up hope. Upon hearing about the protests, Odinga told the Associated Press that the demonstrators should "hold their horses." He said the talks have not collapsed, but have "just been adjourned." Yet again, Kenyans will have to wait...