NAIROBI, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki is scheduled to meet his former ally whom he dropped from the cabinet last month to chart the next course of delivering new constitution.

   Former roads minister Raila Odinga, who spearheaded the campaign for the rejection of the proposed new constitution during the November 21 referendum, told reporters in Nairobi on Wednesday he would meet Kibaki this week to discuss crucial issues pertaining the new charter.

   "The president admits that there should be a meeting between us to discuss pertinent issues on the constitution and the way forward," Odinga told journalists after a brief chat with Kibaki on the sidelines of the Commonwealth speakers' conference underway in Nairobi.

   The fiery lawmaker said it is the president who initiated Wednesday's meeting and that he could not turn down the head of state, adding that his colleagues who campaigned against the new charter had called for such dialogue at its retreat last year.

   "We do not want this conflict to continue. We have said that 2006 will be a year of reconciliation, tolerance and dialogue. For that matter I am happy that the president has read the mood of the year and is positive like other Kenyans," Odinga said.

   The influential former roads minister teamed up with six other colleagues to campaign against the draft constitution which would have replaced the country's charter, which came into force when Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.

   But both Odinga and Kibaki fell out last year, and Odinga and six former ministers dropped from the cabinet have been calling on the president to recall parliament this month to begin work on drafting a new constitution that would be more acceptable to the public.

   The lawmaker described relations between him and the president as "very good."

   "We are good friends. We only disagree to agree on matters of the constitution and there is nothing personal between me and Kibaki," Odinga said.

   Odinga, who is usually credited with backing Kibaki for the presidency in 2002, early this week, announced that he will run against his former ally in 2007 general election.

   Kibaki, suffered an embarrassing defeat on November 21 when 57 percent of voters rejected a draft constitution he had championed that allowed him to keep executive powers.

   The rejection of the charter was seen by Kibaki's foes and many observers as a vote of no-confidence in the lackluster performance of his nearly three-year-old administration.

   Kibaki, whose administration has been dogged by disputes among parties within the coalition since it took office three years ago and widely condemned for failing to fulfill its promises of reform, said in his New Year message that he will soon make an announcement on the mechanisms for fast-tracking the process.

   Opponents of the draft, including dissident ministers in the former cabinet, had fought against its adoption as it retained near absolute powers in the office of the president and defied popular demands for significant authority to be devolved to a prime minister.

   Analysts attributed the split within Kibaki's shaky coalition to failure to adhere to a preelection deal that Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya share power with the Liberal Democratic Party.

   Kibaki took office after leading an opposition alliance to a landslide victory in 2002 elections that ended the notoriously corrupt rule of the former KANU regime. Enditem