DEAL REACHED ON COALITION CABINET

C O N F I D E N T I A L NAIROBI 000896 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR S, D, P, G, DRL AND AF A/S FRAZER FROM THE AMBASSADOR E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM KE SUBJECT: DEAL REACHED ON COALITION CABINET REF: NAIROBI 893 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: Ambassador Ranneberger for reasons 1.4 b and d. ¶1. (C) Per reftel, President Kibaki and Prime Minister (designate) Odinga met on April 3 to discuss the composition of a coalition cabinet. Odinga told me that the meeting resulted in an "agreement in principle." Kibaki and Odinga agreed that there will be 40 ministries. Kibaki's side will keep Finance and Security, while Odinga's side will get the powerful Local Government ministry, among others. For now, both sides are closely guarding all information pertaining to the distribution of major and minor cabinet posts, however, telling the press on April 3 only that a deal had been reached. ¶2. (C) Odinga said the reason for confidentiality was because some details remain to be worked out. This "fine tuning," as he put it, will be done by teams from the two sides on April 3-4, in time to unveil the cabinet on Sunday, April 6. Still to work out are allocations of some of the ministerial portfolios and the designation of which personality will occupy each ministerial position. This "fine tuning" undoubtedly will not be a simple process and could yield further problems. ¶3. (SBU) We are working on a draft statement for issuance by the Department once a deal is formally announced. RANNEBERGER