By Andrew Cawthorne and Duncan Miriri
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's rival parties were stuck onTuesday over how to share power despite pleas from home andabroad for quick resolution to a crisis that has killed 1,000people and wrecked their nation's reputation.
Foreign powers and the majority of Kenya's 36 millionpeople are impatient for President Mwai Kibaki and oppositionleader Raila Odinga to find a political solution to the eastAfrican country's darkest moment since independence in 1963.
Their dispute over who won the December 27 electionunleashed protests and ethnic attacks that have traumatised thepopulation, displaced more than 300,000 people, and hurtKenya's image as a stable democracy and peacemaker in theregion.
"The time for a political settlement was yesterday," U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the end of her tripto Kenya to push for a power-sharing deal.
Apart from hardliners on both sides, a similar message isreverberating round Kenya from businessmen, clerics, grassrootsgroups and ordinary citizens, who are increasingly angry withthe political class for allowing the crisis to drag on.
But Tuesday's resumption of negotiations, at a plushNairobi hotel, yielded no breakthrough on the crucial issue ofhow Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and Odinga's OrangeDemocratic Movement (ODM) can come together in government.
The government team is resisting calls by Rice, mediatorKofi Annan and other western powers to allow a power-sharingdeal or "grand coalition". The opposition wants a virtually50:50 arrangement, with a powerful job like a new primeminister's post for Odinga and a new vote in two years.
'THIS IS NOT AMERICA'
Government negotiator Mutula Kilonzo bristled whenreporters quoted Rice to him as he walked into the afternoonsession.
"Those are her own views. This is not America, this isKenya. We have a constitution," he said, noting a sub-committeewas formed to discuss the issue of "structures of governance".
"We have a system of laws. I believe we are going to cometo a reasonable arrangement."
In a pointed statement, Kibaki's office said he was"willing to work together and share responsibilities ingovernment" with ODM, but any solution "must be in tandem withthe current Kenyan constitution."
"President Kibaki pointed out that the current negotiationshad reached a critical stage and gave his assurance to Kenyansthat he would follow through the remaining stages," it added.
The government's insistence on sticking to the constitution-- a colonial-era treaty which all sides agree is long overduefor reform -- could block any special new arrangement toaccommodate ODM like a premier's post for Odinga, analysts say.
The deadline set by former U.N. boss Annan for a politicaldeal by mid-February has passed, even after last week's trip toa secluded safari lodge to focus minds. But the Ghanaian hasvowed to stay until mediation reaches an "irreversible point".
Kenyan political pundit Macharia Gaitho said Kibaki wascaught between pressure from abroad to give way, and pressurefrom his own hardliners not to let ODM take too much power.
"The U.S., Britain and other major Western powers all seemto have come to the conclusion that the Kibaki government isbecoming the impediment," he wrote.
"A siege mentality is creeping in as hardliners ingovernment prevail with the view that the mediation process hasbecome a device which the opposition, backed by the West, isusing to force its way into what would amount to a virtualtakeover of government."
(For special coverage from Reuters on Kenya's crisis see:http ://africa.reuters.com/elections/kenya/)
