The bipartisan talks have once again hit a snag after the Azimio team failed to show up.
The talks were suspended a month ago after the Azimio team issued a list of new demands and were supposed to resume on Tuesday to focus on the recruitment of IEBC commissioners.
Addressing the press on Tuesday, the co-chairperson George Muragara from the Kenya Kwanza team said they were still open to talks should the Azimio faction decide to come back to the table.
“We just retain the status quo. For Azimio they suspended the talks, they have not called them off. We have to accept the suspension but we say we are ready to resume when Azimio confirms they want to come back to the table,” he said.
Even though he said the reasons for the no-show remain unknown, it could be due to what he termed as unreasonable demands the Azimio team had made before the collapse of the talks.
“We do not know why they are not coming back to the table because they had made several demands which were possibly not met according to them. But we had also told them the demands were unreasonable, they were unattainable,” he said.
Muragara said a majority of the demands were anchored on illegalities.
The bipartisan talks that brought ceasefire were adjourned indefinitely on June 1.
The committee co-chair Otiende Amollo announced they had pulled out of the talks sine die (indefinitely, with no set date of resumption).
Otiende argued that there was inaction to their demands by the President William Ruto team, saying the back-and-forth and hardening of positions informed their decision to invoke Clause 36 of the framework agreement.
The clause allows the joint team to adjourn the talks to build consensus on any issue.