Political activists plan more rallies after Nairobi riots

Political activists demanding a quick enactment of Kenya's new draft constitution said on Monday that the police had authorised them to hold future rallies, following weekend riots in the capital, Nairobi, when crowds clashed with police. Hundreds of demonstrators who defied a government a ban on a rally convened by a lobby group called Katiba (Swahili for constitution) Watch to demand the enactment of the controversial new constitution clashed with police, sparking riots in the city that left dozens of people injured and several shops looted. Police arrested many other people during the Saturday fracas. Police, some on horseback, beat the youthful demonstrators with batons and used tear gas and water cannons to prevent them from gathering at Uhuru Park in central Nairobi, where they were to have been addressed by activists and politicians. "We have basically come to a truce. We can have our rallies and take responsibility for whatever will happen," Leslie Mwachiro, the chairman of Katiba Watch, told reporters after meeting Nairobi Provincial Police Officer King'ori Mwangi. Mwachiro said police had assured the group that the simultaneous rallies it planned to hold in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu on Friday would not be interfered with. The government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said the Saturday rally had been banned because police had received information that "criminal elements" planned to use the gathering as an excuse to engage in unlawful activities. "The rallies were banned in good faith," Mutua told IRIN on Monday, insisting that the government did not intend to suppress basic freedoms. The confrontation between the demonstrators and police was the first public show of frustration with President Mwai Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government, which came to power following a landslide electoral victory 18 months ago. Narc, an alliance of more than a dozen parties, has been dogged by factional wrangles over a pre-election deal on equitable sharing of government posts. One of the key partners in the coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has complained that it received a raw deal from the other groups, mainly Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya. The LDP has taken issue with delays to enact the new constitution, under which the president would have ceded some of his powers to a proposed prime minister, a post which some LDP politicians said had been reserved for it in a pre-election memorandum of understanding. Critics of the new constitution, some of them cabinet ministers, have argued that the clause on devolution of power providing for the office of a prime minister to be elected by parliament would create a situation where the presidency would become ceremonial, with real power being exercised by the prime minister. They said the political setup envisaged in the draft constitution was also likely to lead to the emergence of two centres of power, with the prime minister and the president pitted against each other. Kibaki has backed a team of politicians trying to build consensus on the contentious issues of the draft constitution before it is taken to parliament. But Katiba Watch, LDP politicians and some opposition MPs have demanded that the draft constitution, which was debated for months at a constitutional conference that ended earlier this year, be enacted without amendment. On 30 June, Kibaki reshuffled his cabinet, bringing into government several opposition politicians. He said he wanted to form a government of national unity more focused on improving the lives of the people. His opponents saw the move as an attempt to deal with the factional infighting that has dogged his government since 2002. "We should put aside endless politics and focus our energies on baking a bigger national cake, so that more of our people can be in gainful employment," Kibaki said in a television address announcing the new cabinet. "A united government can never be woven simply along party lines. A strong social fabric can never be tailored along narrow ethnic interests," Kibaki said. "The leadership of Kenya must reflect the entire people of Kenya."