Power sharing as an outcome of Civil war : a case study of Coalition Government negotiations in Kenya, 2008

Abstract

On February 2008 Kenyan political leaders engaged in negotiations that saw the signing of a peace agreement following an election crisis. It sought to resolve the impasse by using a power sharing agreement implemented through a coalition government. This was despite of the constant failure of many power sharing agreements in Africa. However, the Kenyan agreement has seemed to stand the test of time and is becoming a case study for conflict managers on its best practices. It has ushered in a ray of hope that possibly all is not lost in using it as a technique. This study therefore sought to examine the Kenyan power sharing accord and what has attributed to its success. It has argued that it is because of the soundness of the negotiation process and hypothesized that the success lies in the negotiation process which must be driven by the ripe moment theory. To test this assertion the study primarily used secondary data though primary was also relied upon on countable occasions and by exploring and critically analyzing the works that had been published on implementing power sharing agreements in Africa. The study concludes that indeed if the parties in a conflict did attain a mutually hurting stalemate to realize a ripe moment so as to view negotiations as a resolution measure, then it would be difficult to embrace the outcomes irrespective of the other factors used to ensure successful implementation of the power sharing agreements.