Kibaki under pressure to share power.

One and a half months after going to the polls Kenyans still do not know who really won the presidential race. They are now waiting with baited breath for the last word from former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who is trying to negotiate a political settlement between incumbent president Kibaki and leader of the main opposition party Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Raila Odinga.

The two leaders have been locked in a bitter dispute over the results of the 27 December elections, which have led to fierce and bloody violence and the death of 1,000 people and the displacement of a further 350,000 people across the country.

The mediation team led by Annan proposed a power-sharing deal between the antagonists, but hardliners in the ruling Party of National Unity (PNU) and ODM-Kenya were not having any of it.

Instead ODM said it supported such a move and that it is ready to drop its demand that Kibaki step aside and the vote be re-run.

Opponents of a power-sharing deal include justice and constitutional affairs minister Martha Karua, who told off the western powers supporting the initiative, saying Kenya was a sovereign state and would not be bullied