Kenya latest: Odinga says "I'll talk to Kibaki."
I've just interviewed Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga's director of communications, Salim Lone. He told me that Odinga has dropped his insistence that Kibaki must acknowledge that he did not win the election before he'll start negotiations. His only condition now is that there must be international mediation -- but apparently Kibaki is saying No to President Kufuor of Ghana who's chairman of the African Union. Full coverage on The World Tonight on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 at 2200 GMT and online.
On Thursday 3rd Jan, your reporter Mark Doyle spoke of the "Africa, big man, winner takes all" system of politcs. Nothing could be further from the truth. The "winner-takes-all" system - first-past-the-post in elections and majority votes in decisions - comes from Westminster! (And Greece. )
Complain about this postThe traditional East Africa methodology, the 'baraza', (similar to the Rwandan 'gacaca') is much more inclusive.
Is it not time that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã discussed a political system which is based, not on the adversarial closed question of the majority vote, but on the more inclusive and more democratic open question, the multi-option preference vote, one of the tools which can be used by mediators in conflict resolution work? Indeed, if this were the basis of our political system, political violence could often be obviated.
Peter Emerson