NAIROBI: Kenya’s rival camps sat down on Friday to hammer out the details of a power-sharing deal signed by President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to end a bloody two-month political crisis.

The deal, which created the post of a prime minister and two deputies, drew praise from many Kenyans and the international community and signalled an end to one of the country’s worst crises since independence in 1963.

The African Union which initiated the talks last month welcomed the accord reached on Thursday and “encouraged the parties to fully implement the agreement”. Residents of the Rift Valley town of Nakuru huddled around newsstands and discussed the agreement, after political violence and then tribal killings and reprisals that claimed at least 1,500 lives, particularly in Nairobi slums and the fertile west.“I feel that the deal was the best thing that could happen to Kenyans,” said Gideon Nyongesa.

“We are tired of the strife and animosity and it is now time to rebuild our economy,” said the 54-year-old newspaper vendor and resident of Nakuru, which is still under a dusk-to-dawn curfew following the post-election clashes.

“I am happy that Raila finally got his due right,” said Gideon Omondi, from Odinga’s Luo tribe.

The prime minister will be from the party with a parliamentary majority, which currently Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement holds.

Odinga accused Kibaki of stealing the vote in the Dec 27 elections and called for nationwide protests that tapped into old tribal resentments, mainly over the political and economic dominance of Kibaki’s Kikuyu for decades.

Kikuyus were forcefully evicted from many Rift Valley towns in the clashes that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the east African nation.

“Raila was the people’s choice and it now feels good that our wishes are being respected,” Omondi added.

Kibaki has said the post of prime minister and two deputies will be created under the current constitution pending a comprehensive constitutional review in 12 months.—AFP