Kenyan Opposition’s Anger Escalates

VPM | By Renee Montagne and Gwen Thompkins

Published January 9, 2008 at 11:00 AM EST

Updated July 10, 2023

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

There’s been more violence in Kenya. Kenyans have hoped this week would bring an end to the clashes that erupted after last month’s disputed election. The incumbent president – who has begun a second term in office, despite dubious poll results – was supposed to meet his challenger later this week to talk about power sharing, but that meeting has been canceled.

For the latest, we turn to NPR’s Gwendolyn Thompkins in Nairobi.

Welcome, Gwen.

GWENDOLYN THOMPKINS: Thank you, Renee.

MONTAGNE: So what happened to make it that President Mwai Kibaki will not be meeting with his challenger, Raila Odinga?

THOMPKINS: Well, the challenger, Raila Odinga, rejected the invitation. This was around the same time that President Mwai Kibaki went on national television yesterday and named a vice president and about 17 members of his cabinet. He named some of the most important cabinet positions for secretary of defense, the minister for finance, the minister for internal security.

These are the choice positions in a cabinet. And the challenger, Raila Odinga, had expected that his meeting with the president on Friday would begin negotiations toward a power-sharing agreement between Mr. Kibaki and the opposition. So Mr. Odinga, the challenger, is now saying that his meeting with the president on Friday is off because he felt that it would just be gimmickry.

MONTAGNE: So why did, then, Kibaki name his cabinet so fast?

THOMPKINS: You know, President Kibaki has moved very quickly throughout this entire process, to claim and now consolidate power. So within an hour of the announcement of the dubious election results, he took the oath of office. And, now, in advance of this meeting with Odinga, the challenger, he’s creating his own government.

So Mr. Kibaki has never really shown much interest in international mediation or in deal-making, and he appears to be showing no quarter to Mr. Odinga and the opposition. But Mr. Kibaki, in making these decisions to claim and consolidate power quickly, is also pushing the country – which had calmed down a bit – on back toward the bitterness and violence we’ve seen over these past several days. And it also endangers his own tribe, the Kikuyu, who’ve been among those who’ve been most heavily targeted in the violence.

MONTAGNE: Well then, ultimately, does this mean power-sharing is off if these talks are off?

THOMPKINS: Well, not necessarily, Renee. I mean, you know, both of these politicians – President Kibaki and Raila Odinga – they’ve been in the business a long time, and they have each survived and lived to fight another day, so to speak.

So the Odinga camp has said that it has not closed the door yet on international mediation. You know, John Kufuor, the president of Ghana and the chairman of the African Union, is here, and he’s here prepared to help mediate talks. Also, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer is expected to return to Kenya to continue the process of getting these men to the bargaining table. So it’s too early yet to give up completely on a negotiated settlement. But at this point, many Kenyans have lost the optimism that they have in the beginning of the week.

MONTAGNE: You know, on Monday, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama took a break from campaigning to appeal to opposition leaders there in Kenya by telephone. His father, of course, was Kenyan. What has been the response there to his call?

THOMPKINS: You know, there hasn’t really been much of a response to his call at this point. I mean, people in Kenya are keeping an eye on the presidential race in the United States. Irrespective of ethnic group, they do seem to support Mr. Obama’s presidential bid. But at this point, people here are more interested in the players who are here.

MONTAGNE: Gwen, thanks.

THOMPKINS: Thank you, Renee.

MONTAGNE: NPR’s Gwendolyn Thompkins, speaking from Nairobi. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Renee Montagne

Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.

Montagne's most recent assignment was a yearlong collaboration with ProPublica reporter Nina Martin, investigating the alarming rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., as compared to other developed countries. The series, called "Lost Mothers," was recognized with more than a dozen awards in American journalism, including a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The series was also named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

From 2004 to 2016, Montagne co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. Her first experience as host of an NPR newsmagazine came in 1987, when she, along with Robert Siegel, were named the new hosts of All Things Considered.

After leaving All Things Considered, Montagne traveled to South Africa in early 1990, arriving to report from there on the day Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison. In 1994, she and a small team of NPR reporters were awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for their coverage of South Africa's historic elections that led to Mandela becoming that country's first black president.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Montagne has made 10 extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every major city, from Kabul to Kandahar, to peaceful villages, and to places where conflict raged. She has profiled Afghanistan's presidents and power brokers, but focused on the stories of Afghans at the heart of that complex country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, midwives, and warlords. Her coverage has been honored by the Overseas Press Club, and, for stories on Afghan women in particular, by the Gracie Awards.

One of her most cherished honors dates to her days as a freelance reporter in the 1980s, when Montagne and her collaborator, the writer Thulani Davis, were awarded "First Place in Radio" by the National Association of Black Journalists for their series "Fanfare for the Warriors." It told the story of African-American musicians in the military bands from WW1 to Vietnam.

Montagne began her career in radio pretty much by accident, when she joined a band of friends, mostly poets and musicians, who were creating their own shows at a new, scrappy little San Francisco community station called KPOO. Her show was called Women's Voices.

Montagne graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career includes teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism (now the Carter Institute).

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