CHEPKIOYO, Kenya — Kenya’s opposition leader demanded Saturday that the president resign and new elections be held, dropping a conciliatory stance that had brought hope for a political settlement to end weeks of postelection violence.
Raila Odinga, who accuses President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 election, spoke in his traditional power base in western Kenya before cheering supporters at the funeral of a slain opposition lawmaker.
Kibaki “must step down or there must be a re-election — in this I will not be compromised,” Odinga shouted in East Africa’s common language of Swahili.
It was a sharp turnaround from comments he made in English two days earlier in the capital, Nairobi. He indicated he would not insist on Kibaki’s resignation, saying “we are willing to give and take.”
The next day, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan struck an optimistic note after mediating negotiations between the two sides, and Odinga’s own political party said a power-sharing agreement was in the works. Annan said he hoped to complete work on a settlement early next week.
But Odinga returned Saturday to the themes that have rallied supporters, repeating a comparison of which he is fond: “You cannot steal my cow, and I catch you red-handed, and then expect me to share the milk because the cow is mine.”
More than 1,000 people have been killed and 300,000 forced from their homes since the election, which Kenyan and foreign observers say was rigged. The fighting has pitted members of Kenya’s rival ethnic groups against one another, gutted the economy and left the country’s reputation as a budding democracy and a top tourist destination in tatters.
Only 8,000 people visited Kenya in January, far short of the 100,000 officials had expected, Ong’onga Achieng, the managing director of the Kenya Tourist Board, told hotel owners and travel agents meeting in the port city of Mombasa.
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