By C. Bryson Hull
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kofi Annan, the mediator trying to endKenya's violent post-election crisis, prepared to reveal a dealon Friday struck between the feuding parties that looked set toshift the dispute towards a battle over the constitution.
The Ghanaian mediator secreted the parties at a luxurylodge in southeast Kenya for three days in the hope of strikinga deal to end the immediate political crisis by the week's end.
But they flew back to the capital Nairobi on Thursdaywithout agreeing on power-sharing, a sticking point seen bydiplomats as essential to averting any more bloodshed.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga accuses President MwaiKibaki of stealing the December 27 election, but the presidentsays he won fairly and says the opposition has stoked violenceinstead of following Kenya's laws to challenge the result.
Government officials said the four page agreement due to berevealed by Annan on Friday in Nairobi included a deal torewrite the constitution within a year.
The opposition wants to draft a new charter, share power inthe government and hold a new election within two years. Thegovernment wants constitutional and electoral law changes, butonly applicable to the next election, due in 2012.
The only form of power-sharing being considered is givingopposition members ministries in Kibaki's half-filled cabinet,government officials have said.
Annan is trying to bring an immediate end to apost-election crisis which plunged the east African nation intoone of its darkest moments since 1963 independence, with atleast 1,000 killed and 300,000 displaced in politically-tingedviolence.
The killings laid bare disputes over power, wealth and landthat have festered in Kenya since the British colonial era, andhave been manipulated by politicians ever since.
Ethnic bloodshed, violent protests and images of forlornrefugees seen since the December 27 poll have dented Kenya'sreputation as one of the continent's most stable, prosperousdemocracies and hurt its booming economy.
RICE TO WEIGH IN
U.S. President George W. Bush, due to start a five-nationAfrica tour on Saturday, has dispatched Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice to throw her diplomatic weight behind theAnnan initiative. Bush himself will not come to Kenya.
Rice will underscore a U.S. commitment to help both sidesagree "on a common way forward that will ... help the countryregain its position as a democratic and economic leader in theregion," the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi said in a statement.
She was due to meet Kibaki, Annan, Odinga and others inKenya on Monday, the embassy said.
Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement said in a statementRice's visit was "a sign of the growing U.S. and internationalawareness that this grave crisis is far from over and thatinternational pressure is essential to ensure" Annan succeeds.
With the talks' focus shifting to the constitution, an old,unresolved battle in Kenya is now back on the table. Calls fora new draft have existed since the early 1990s, to replace onedating back to just before independence.
Critics say it fosters a winner-take-all system ripe forgraft and tribal cronyism because of the president's immensepowers of patronage and loopholes that let the executive trumpthe legislature and courts almost at will.
(For special coverage from Reuters on Kenya's crisis see:
http://africa.reuters.com/elections/kenya/)
(Additional reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by DanielWallis and Michael Winfrey)
