ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
And I'm Michele Norris.
In Kenya, talks between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga appear to be on track. The two leaders have been at odds since disputed election results were announced last week. The violence that has accompanied that political impasse has destroyed thousands of lives across Kenya.
NPR's Gwen Thompkins is in Nairobi. And as she reports, getting the two sides talking has not been easy. Their grudge reaches way back.
GWEN THOMPKINS: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Fraser has been meeting separately with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and challenger Raila Odinga. Kibaki claims to be the legitimate president of Kenya despite an untrustworthy count of the vote. Odinga has called for Kibaki to step aside. Fraser today says both leaders are now prepared to talk.
Ms. JENDAY FRASER (U.S. Assistant Secretary of State): I think that what they need is some confidence. They don't trust each other very much. They're not certain. But I think that both President Kibaki and Raila Odinga have said that they are prepared to talk.
THOMPKINS: Getting Kibaki and Odinga talking takes both a national emergency and a strong push from the international community. Asked just about any Kenyan why and the answer would be in three words or less - Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as MOU, a 2002 political deal between Kibaki and Odinga relates directly to the current crisis. That's when trust between the two men vanished.
Mr. GITAU WARIGI (Political Columnist, Sunday Nation): They sat together at the Nairobi club and signed some document, some secret document. All has changed. When Kibaki go into power, he trashed the whole thing.
THOMPKINS: Gitau Warigi is a political columnist for Kenya's largest newspaper. He says he's one of the few who have seen the document. Warigi says that in order to get elected in 2002, Kibaki made promises to Odinga that he couldn't or wouldn't keep.
Mr. WARIGI: That document outlines specific positions. Raila wanted to be made prime minister, various other players at different positions. It was clearly an elaborate power-sharing plan, it was never made public that this existed.
THOMPKINS: In 2002, both leaders wanted to snap the political franchise of Daniel arap Moi, who was then president. Moi had held power for 24 years and had just chosen a successor. Kibaki, who was in the political opposition, needed Odinga to leave Moi's party and join with them. By all accounts, it was a glorious revolution. Raila Odinga joined with Kibaki and let all of Kenya know that he supported Kibaki for president. And Kibaki won by a landslide.
Ms. WANGARI MAATHAI (Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Winner): Part of what had been promised was not in the constitution.
THOMPKINS: That's Kenya's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai. She was in the political opposition at the time. Maathai says Odinga was counting on a change in the constitution to create the position of prime minister. And the opposition had promised Kenyans a new constitution within a hundred days of assuming power.
Ms. MAATHAI: And so 100 days would not have been a very long time for a prime minister to reach and assume power. As it turned out, we didn't have a constitution, a new constitution in 100 days. And that's when the frustration started to set in.
THOMPKINS: The constitution that the Kibaki government eventually put to a vote did not mention any significant provisions of the 2002 Memorandum of Understanding. And that's when Odinga formed an opposition to Kibaki. When the voters went to the polls in 2005, they followed Odinga and defeated Kibaki's constitutional referendum. Again, Wangari Maathai.
Ms. MAATHAI: They didn't say - the people of Kenya did not say, they didn't know what — they did not want a new constitution. What they said is that they did not want that particular constitution.
THOMPKINS: For the Odinga camp, the 2007 votes should have given him the presidency. But a disputed election tally gave Kibaki a second term. And much of the country has exploded in rage. Either men could have won the race, but now it's impossible to tell who actually did.
Today, Kibaki invited Odinga to visit him Friday at the presidential residence. It might improve Kenya's prospects for peace if neither leader mentions the Memorandum of Understanding by name. Many Kenyans now use the term as a joke, to describe something that probably won't happen.
Gwen Thompkins, NPR News, Nairobi.