Police in cities throughout Kenya used tear gas and batons Wednesday to quell opposition supporters on the first day of a three-day nationwide strike against the government of President Mwai Kibaki. Kenya's political crisis – now in its third week after a disputed Dec. 27 election touched off a wave of ethnic violence that killed more than 600 people and displaced more than 250,000 – shows few signs of ending soon.
Populist opposition leader Raila Odinga maintains that Mr. Kibaki stole the election, and numerous mediation efforts by top global statesmen have failed to bear fruit. Yet the solution may come from a combination of internal fatigue and international pressure on Kenya's two top political leaders who, until now, have seemed unwilling to budge. "There's no doubt Kenya needs a constant internal dynamic and international pressure to get these two sides to the negotiation table," says Francois Grignon, head of the Africa program for the International Crisis Group in Nairobi. "Had it not been for a robust statement of the US, the EU, and international election observers, and the similar reports of domestic observers, we might have a situation like under the days [of former President Daniel arap Moi], where there was blatant rigging, but there was no strong stand by the international community."
High-level mediation efforts by US Undersecretary of State Jendayi Frazier, Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and African Union head John Kufuor may not have provided a quick end to the crisis, but they were not without results either, Mr. Grignon says. Shuttle diplomacy between the president and the opposition, during the Kufuor mission, did produce a draft document that discussed many of the major political issues. In the end, hard-liners around Kibaki persuaded him not to sign the agreement.