Election Delay Sought in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya -- President Daniel Arap Moi has called for an extension of Kenya’s current parliament session--and his final term in office--so that elections can be held under a constitution now being drafted.

The move would delay elections planned for later this year, and analysts said it is designed to prolong Moi’s 24-year rule beyond constitutional limits.

But Moi, 77, one of Africa’s longest-serving heads of state, pledged Saturday to retire after the next elections.

“The time for my retirement has arrived ... after the next general elections,” he told tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in a Nairobi slum.

The Constitution of Kenya Review Commission announced this year that it would not be able to finish its work of drafting a new constitution until 2003. Lawmakers from Moi’s Kenya African National Union party, or KANU, have proposed extending the panel’s deadline to May 15, 2003.

Moi announced his support of extending parliament’s session at a dinner Friday to celebrate KANU’s merger with the largest opposition party, the National Democratic Party.

Raila Odinga, the former leader of the Democratic Party and now secretary-general of KANU, said that as an opposition leader he had wanted the next election to be under a new constitution, and his view had not changed after joining KANU.

Kenya was a one-party state until Moi, under pressure from the international community, allowed multiparty elections in 1992. Opposition parties, though, have been splintered and KANU has maintained control of the country.

The merger of KANU and the National Democratic Party was a major blow to the three other opposition parties, which have not formed a united front in the race against KANU. If KANU’s proposals to delay the elections proceed, analysts say that the balloting might be deferred until after October 2003, when Moi would celebrate 25 years in power.

Opposition leaders have vowed to cause civil unrest if KANU pushes ahead with the move to extend parliament’s session.

When the ruling party lawmakers first proposed the idea of extending parliament, the U.S. and British embassies condemned the proposal, insisting that elections be held this year as planned. Independent watchdog groups also have denounced the idea to delay elections.

“It is [Moi] who is extending parliament, simply because he is not ready to go,” said John Githongo, head of the Kenya branch of Transparency International.