Kenya Rivals Say Expect Cabinet Deal on Monday

The cabinet was the key element of a deal brokered in February to end the east African nation`s bloodiest political crisis.

Kenya's president and future prime minister said on Sunday they had made "substantial progress" at talks to end an impasse over a power-sharing cabinet and expected to clinch a deal on Monday.

"We have had a lengthy consultation throughout the day on the formation of a grand coalition government. In this regard we have made substantial progress," President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga said in a joint statement.

"We appeal to all Kenyans to be patient and assure them that we expect to successfully conclude the consultations tomorrow."

The two sides had planned to name the cabinet on Sunday, but disagreement over the division of ministries scuttled that plan and forced the two leaders to hold the last-minute meeting.

The two sides said they had adjourned the talks until Monday afternoon.

The cabinet was the key element of a deal brokered in February to end the east African nation's bloodiest political crisis, a post-election spasm of rioting and ethnic slaughter that killed at least 1,200 people and displaced 300,000.

The two leaders have been under heavy local and international pressure to break a month-long deadlock over the cabinet. On Thursday they said they had agreed on how to share 40 ministerial jobs and pledged to name the cabinet on Sunday.

Earlier, an opposition spokesman said Odinga would make no more concessions.

Kibaki had in early January named a half-cabinet that is still in place and the opposition rejected his first offer to take the remaining ministries in a unity government.

The fury over Kibaki's contested victory eroded Kenya's image as a stable, prosperous country and hurt its economy, currency and stock market.

The shilling currency has rebounded to levels not seen since the disputed Dec. 27 vote in anticipation of political peace.

The inflated cabinet -- 40 compared with 32 previously and the biggest since independence from Britain in 1963 -- has angered civil society groups and many Kenyans.

They view it as yet another case of the country's political elite enriching themselves from the public coffers.

By some estimates the cabinet will cost about $1 billion a year. That is nearly 5 percent of Kenya's 2006 gross domestic product of $21.2 billion, the latest reported by the World Bank.

The two former allies split in 2005 after Odinga, then in cabinet, led a move that defeated a Kibaki-backed constitution.

Their next task will be to draft a new one in the next year to address issues of land, power and tribalism that the election crisis revealed. Analysts say it will be difficult, given the rift between the two men.