Kofi Annan has threatened to leave the Kenyan talks if no progress is made soon. Mr. Annan has been leading talks aimed at finding a lasting solution to some of the problems that caused and/or were results of the flawed elections held in the country last December. According to an aide to Mr. Annan, the former UN boss lamented that he had put a lot of important things on hold to be a part of the talks and that if it emerged that the negotiating parties were not willing to reach a compromise soon he would leave.

The talks, according to recent media briefings, have reached a critical stage. Both the government and the opposition have agreed on the creation of a prime minister’s post that will be occupied by the opposition leader Raila Odinga. However, the problem has been whether the prime minister should have some executive powers or not. The government insists that the current constitution allows for the creation of a non-executive premier while the opposition wants an amendment to create the position of an executive premier and also for an equal share of cabinet positions and other appointments.

I hate to be pessimistic but things look really bad for this East African country. With the imminent collapse of the talks, the government will probably get marginalised by the international community, a situation that will make it even more autocratic and impervious to the wishes of ordinary Kenyans. Inevitably there will be more tribal bloodshed because the opposition remains adamant in its insistence that it won the elections held last December. Plus the post-election violence has divided the country on tribal lines so much that any national reconciliation will necessarily need ODM and PNU to come up with a political solution and possible a broad-based transitional government.

Kenya is steadily turning into the Ivory Coast. The latter, a former third biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, descended into civil strife soon after fraudulent elections were held following the death of long time strongman Houphouet Boigny. Kenya, like Boigny-Ivory Coast, was relatively stable during the iron fisted reign of Daniel Arap Moi for nearly a quarter of a century. However, after last year’s fraudulent elections that saw the return of the incumbent Mwai Kibaki, violence erupted that resulted in the death of more than 1000 people and destruction of property worth billions of shillings.

Both sides of the political divide seem not to have the interest of ordinary Kenyans at heart. The business community and the rest of the civil society seem to have taken a wait-and-see stance. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Kenyans remain displaced in IDP camps without enough food or medication.

Three months ago no one would have predicted that Kenya would become yet another African statistic to be mentioned in the same light with the likes of Ivory Coast, Somalia, Zimbabwe …….. and all the others.

There may still be time to save the situation. But as things stand, I think the country is still in the eye of the storm – with more trouble to come before sanity returns. I just hope that Kenya and Kenyans are strong enough to endure through all this and emerge as an even stronger country.