Kibaki, a government minister from 1965 until winning power as head of the Party of National Unity in elections five years ago, also enjoys the support of Kenyatta's successor, Daniel Arap Moi, a member of the Kalenjin tribe who ruled Kenya for 24 years from 1978 to 2002.

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Uri Bank, an aide to MK Benny Elon of the right-wing, religious National Unity Party, says the shift is a sign of modernisation.

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Perhaps Pasok, his party, will enter a government of national unity with New Democracy, the opposition, headed by a technocrat.

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The men, all supporters of Mr Odinga's opposition Orange Democratic Movement, denied involvement in attacks on members of Mr Kibaki's Party for National Unity and his Kikuyu ethnic group in the Rift Valley.

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Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

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Yossi Beilin - the dovish minister of justice within the Barak government - has warned that he will leave the party and take a number of parliamentary colleagues with him, if it decides to join a national unity government with Ariel Sharon.

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