africanpress.in

An initiative to stop President Mwai Kibaki to travel to Geneva to attend a meeting with chief mediator Kofi Annan has began in earnest with Party of National Unity urging him to ignore the trip.

Chief Mediator Kofi Annan has asked both Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to attend the meeting at the end of this month, March, to discuss the status of the Grand Coalition Government, which was created out of a power sharing arrangement between PNU and partner Orange Democratic Movement party.

“We take exception to Annan’s purported summoning to Geneva of the Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya. This is a direct affront to our sovereignty and one that sadly, ODM seems to support,” PNU said in a statement issued to the press on Wednesday.

Mr Annan chaired talks between both sides following disputed Presidential election results in the 2007 General Election. The dispute triggered a wave of violence that left more than 1000 people killed and over 500,000 displaced.

His action to summon the head of state to the talks has, however, not been received well by a section of the Government which feels it is disrespectful to Kenya as an independent country.

ODM party is, on the other hand, looking forward to the meeting, with a declaration on Tuesday to use the Geneva forum to demand for renegotiation of the power sharing agreement.

The party officially claimed that it has not been fully involved in running the Grand Coalition Government as an equal partner.

PNU reaction
Reacting on Wednesday, PNU officials, however, said the party takes offence with Annan’s move and that he should instead travel to Kenya to hold talks with the head of state.

The party’s vice chairman in charge of programmes, Mr Jimmy Angwenyi, said the President will not have PNU’s blessings if he goes ahead and makes the trip to Geneva.

“President Kibaki can decide to go but not with the blessings of the party because we strongly object to his being summoned,” said former Kitutu Chache MP.

Vice chairman in charge of Election Affairs Mr George Nyamweya said Annan should instead travel to Kenya to hold talks with the Head of State. “He should come here and sit with us. Let us discuss Kenyan matters on Kenyan soil because we are not at war,” he said.

'Nothing to renegotiate'

PNU has also trashed calls by ODM to renegotiate the power sharing deal saying there was nothing to renegotiate. The PNU officials tore into the ODM accusing it of being power hungry and refusing to use existing channels of dispute resolution within the Government.

“ODM, our partners in the coalition have embarked on pursuit of raw power where their only quest is getting positions for themselves. They grovel and complain. The coalition has a committee to resolve disputes but ODM has refused to take whatever complaints it may have to this body because they do not respect any organised structures and clearly subscribe to chaos,” the officials said in a statement read by vice chairman Dr Noah Wekesa at the new party headquarters.

The party accused ODM of seeking to politicise the security forces and the civil service saying doing so would set the country on the route to destruction.

‘The civil service and security forces are not political organs for positions to be distributed amongst political supporters. Indeed the law demands and requires that employees in these institutions be and remain non partisan,” said the party.

source.nation.ke

Annan's summons to President Kibaki is not in good blood. He is be-littling the President