Odinga on Sunday evening called off the bi-weekly anti-government protests he had staged for two weeks and said the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition is ready for dialogue to address key issues they have with the Kenya Kwanza government.
It followed President Ruto’s appeal to Odinga hours prior, urging him to stop the demonstrations and instead consider talks towards a bipartisan parliamentary process in the recruitment of commissioners to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
The formation of a new electoral body is one of the issues the opposition had raised with President Ruto’s administration.
US ambassador to Kenya, Meg Witman, commended Ruto and Odinga for the decision, tweeting: “We welcome the agreement by President Ruto and former PM Raila Odinga to establish a bipartisan process to find solutions that benefit all Kenyans.”
And while the opposition leader has threatened to resume protests if “no meaningful outcome” is reached within a week, the US urged all parties involved to support the planned dialogues.
“We commend both leaders for their commitment to peaceful dialogue and call on all parties to support this process,” Ambassador Whitman added.
Three people have died since the onset of the protests on March 20. The protests triggered clashes, with anti-riot police firing tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators on Mondays and Thursdays.
Some 400 others were injured in the chaos, according to President Ruto, while many businesses were looted and property vandalized in Nairobi and Kisumu.
Odinga on Sunday issued a raft of conditions Ruto’s administration should meet going forward with the dialogue, such as unconditional release and withdrawal of charges against any Azimio supporter on activities around the demonstrations.
The coalition also called on the reinstatement of the four IEBC commissioners sacked after disowning the 2022 General Election results that saw William Ruto announced president-elect.
Further, the opposition said addressing the high cost of living is an irreducible minimum, and called upon the government to go back to the subsidies applied by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime to cushion Kenyans from the biting cost of living.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, has since withdrawn protests-related charges against six leaders allied to the Azimio coalition.
The US has for years now termed Kenya as a key partner in Africa and recently praised the commitment to democracy. Last week, it called for respect for peaceful demonstrations amid efforts by the National Police Service to ban the protests.
It also frowned upon violence meted on journalists covering the protests, saying the ability of journalists to report freely on matters of public interest informs democracy.
