After almost two months of bloodshed, Kenya's dueling leaders have finally agreed to a power-sharing arrangement intended to end the violence that has crippled the country since its disputed December presidential poll. It's the most positive development Kenya has seen in a long time. In a ceremony staged to calm tempers former U.N Secretary 
General Kofi Annan brought president Mwai Kibaki and his rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, together and encouraged them to shake hands for the cameras.

But now the tricky part begins. The agreement creates a powerful prime ministerial post for Odinga while Kibaki stays on as president. It also splits cabinet posts between the governemnt and the opposition. For Odinga, the first order of business will be to figure out a way to peacefully repatriate over 300,000 Kenyans displaced by the violence without further inflaming ethnic hatreds.  Like Kibaki, the vast majority of those uprooted are ethnic Kikuyus, and resettling them is going to be a colossal task that could take several years, according to those involved in the negotiations.  "It's a huge problem, a huge problem," says Sammy Nyongesa, an opposition mobilizer who was in a celebratory mood earlier today, "It's not going to be solved immediately because politics in Kenya has been ethnicized now."

It's still not clear what form the new arrangement will take. Odinga could well be appointed as prime minister within the next week if the proper constitutional changes are made. Either way, the deal shifts the balance of power in Kenya significantly--away from the ruling elite that have governed the country since independence, opening it up to an entirely new coalition of interests from across the country. Odinga's ODM party now controls a majority of parliament, as well as the powerful house speaker position, and is running high on the momentum that Odinga brought to bear. "Everything is working on our side," Nyongesa said.

But who knows how long that will be the case. Odinga's hardline position started to breed resentment recently when people began to pin the violence on his unwillingness to accept anything less than the presidency. Eventually he did, but not without costs. "It was not good for Raila to continue to have such a hard line stance because of what we had gone through as a country," said one opposition source who asked not to be named, "That was what made him change his mind."  
Hopefully, that spirit of reconciliation will last long enough for Kenya to get back on its feet.