At no time should Quattara accept a power sharing deal with this loser .Gbagbo.African countries are setting bad precedence day in day out.I wish Ivoirans could do a Ben Ali on this Loser

Raila was simply the wrong man for the job.....come to think of it, was he really a "Mediator"? The Gbagbo camp are not idiots, they know very well that Raila is pro-Ouattara. His supporters can defend him all they want but the truth is that he doesn't have any peacemaking credentials. He needs to learn one or two things about diplomacy and well thought speeches, that's what makes people like Annan succeed in such situations.

The AU doesn't have what it takes to solve the Ivory Coast crisis.....when we had PEV in Kenya they appointed John Kuffour to "Mediate", what did he achieve?

Ghana have already indicated that they are against any military action in Ivory Coast. It won't take long before other West African countries take the same stand. Its hard to believe the AU will achieve anything.

sasa hii ni nini? njore is a respected RAO basher here. i know he has nothing against the luos as a community. my only concern is that some luos like you think RAO is the reincarnation of gor-mahia or luanda magere. RAO is an mpig and is just like any other politician in kenya. the name RAO is not luo or vice versa .

AU sent RAO there to fail after he bashed AU over it's lackluster
role over the years...They gave him the job even after he had already taken sides....There is no way Gbagbo would 'hear' him...Over to ECOWAS and AU..Let's see if they have the balls to remove Gbagbo by force..

military intervention? i think ecowas is bluffing. ghana knows it. no country has the balls or energy for military intervention if the CI military remains behind the incumbent. and irrespective of who won, the vote was probably 55-45 at worst 60-40. fighting 40% of a country's population is not a war a foreigner can ever win.

My two cents:The first mediator is usually never successful as they go there on outsiders insistence. Their role is to help the two sides to pick a mediator both can agree with. This is what our PM has to play.

Lets be honest. RAO was desperate to succeed in Ivory Coast because he needs to demonstrate at least one example where he has been a peacemaker. As it were, the most popular opinion outside Nyanza is that he is a warlord whose supporters can visit untold pain upon his political rivals including kunyoa reli at the drop of a hat for the most flimsy reasons. He was not doing this to prepare the way for the real mediator - he thinks he is the one. The implications of this debacle is that he did not change the perception of being a politician who approaches sensitive issues with an open mouth and a closed mind. In my view, IC was probably the lowest hanging fruit on peaceful mediation in Africa. If RAO is still interested in gaining credentials as peace maker, maybe he should take a shot at more intractable situations like the one in our neighborhood, Somalia. They would him there for breakfast I can guarantee. Finally, Njore has captured the facts as they are. That's my take.

My good friend, I think you are hypersensitive to any genuine critique of RAO. He is a co-principle a fact that none can begrudge him - but he has also stated that he will be a presidential candidate in 2012. That puts him in our close hairs - just like any other candidate. He knows probably better than you and I what challenges await him in waging that campaign. I have no reason to be jealous of him because I will not be a candidate. The burden is on him to demonstrate to us - particularly those that he has demonized in the past - that he can be trusted to manage Kenyan affairs without drama and razzmatazz. Outside he core supporters like you he has not. We shall continue to judge him - not by what he says because talk is cheap - but by what he does. It however helps to talk less and reflect more; promise less and deliver more. These are facts that we can't ignore even at the risk of infuriating his army of loyal supporter. Peace!

The Ivory Coast assignment was in my view presented both danger and opportunity to RAO as a senior Kenyan politician. The moment when he verbalized his honest opinion of the solution that he deemed fit in IC, then he lost the opportunity to be a mediator in the crisis. Even if AU and UN approached him to take lead, on retrospect, he should have declined or opted to play a less visible supporting role. But I can understand where he is coming from: the opportunity to be cast as Chief Mediator in a high profile - media saturated environment was simply irresistible. When it unraveled as it has, then he has to take part of the blame - these are not my words - but Gbagbo who refereed to him as biased. Why is this important in the high octane Kenyan politics? It simply cast him as a leader incapable of recognizing his own limitations - if the payoff is high enough. Much more critical is the fact that as a head of state, he probably would be called upon to mediate and negotiate on a daily basis groups and individuals with competing interests - whether economic, political or social. Those will require sober judgment to navigate and simply not to be seen to be doing something. Any unresolved issues have a nasty habit of coming back to bite. On the basis of these two criteria, he has failed. I am sure other opportunities will still come up for him to demonstrate if this is a habit or a one off. I am afraid that so far, his choices suggest to be the former. I am sure there are other wazurans with better arguments on this but for me this will do for now.