By Alistair Thomson
NAIROBI, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The African Union's failure to broker a deal in Kenya's bloody political crisis has exposed a lack of muscle and dented its ambition to become a one-stop shop for the international community's dealings with the continent.
African Union Chairman John Kufuor ended a two-day mediation mission on Thursday without a deal -- or even a meeting -- between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who accuses Kibaki of rigging his Dec. 27 re-election.
Odinga's party, which suspended protests this week to allow for mediation, said on Friday it would resume nationwide action from Wednesday, raising the spectre of more violence.
The electoral dispute spilled over into ethnic bloodshed that has killed 500 people and forced a quarter of a million from their homes in one of Africa's leading economies, long a pillar of stability and a hub for trade and international aid.
Shocked by images of machete-wielding mobs, foreign governments, especially former colonial ruler Britain, quickly threw their weight behind Kufuor as mediator, faithful to the oft-repeated mantra of African solutions for African problems.
But it took the Ghanaian president a week to get to Kenya, as protocol required a formal invitation from Kibaki.
While the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, began her own intervention, the delay cost Kufuor the initiative and bought Kibaki precious time to shore up his position.
Kibaki and Odinga both met Kufuor several times, but despite the best efforts of Kufuor and Washington's Frazer, the rivals did not meet in person.
"The AU struggles when it is dealing with the powerful countries in Africa ... that limits its effectiveness and its perceived legitimacy among African leaders," said Tom Cargil, of London-based international policy think tank Chatham House.
"There's a tendency outside of Africa to put too high expectations on the African Union, because it's only a few years old still. It has great aspirations for itself, partly imposed from the outside, but its resources are still limited."
The best Kufuor could take home with him on Thursday was an agreement by Kibaki and Odinga to "work together" under former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resolve the crisis.
EMINENT AFRICANS
That passes the mediation to yet another "eminent African" after previous efforts by Nobel Peace laureate and former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu and several former African heads of state who have tried to help.
"If we're talking about former this, former that, they may have legitimacy, but do they have authority?" said Matlotleng Patrick Matlou, director of the Africa Institute of South Africa.
"It also brings into question the AU's own African peer review mechanism," Matlou said.
Kenya was one of the first countries to sign up to the African Union's Peer Review Mechanism, a home-grown scheme to encourage better governance and democracy on the continent through voluntary expert reviews of individual nations.
Undertaking a review only to deflect AU attention at times of crisis makes a mockery of the programme's stated aims.
As Kufuor left Kenya, Kibaki's presidency insisted it had been ready for dialogue "facilitated" by the AU chairman, but only after repeatedly rejecting Kufuor's visit as mediation, insisting it was rather a fact-finding mission.
Kibaki's spokesman even told local media there was "nothing to be mediated" and Kufuor was "coming to have a cup of tea".
"If the AU is to be compared to the European Union, then what are its powers?" Matlou asked. "At least (the EU) has some muscle. The AU ... is much weaker."
The Kenyan debacle comes as the AU faces a crippling lack of resources for its peacekeeping forces in hot-spots like Somalia, and just months after violent and flawed elections in Nigeria reversed democratic progress in Africa's most populous nation.
In Sudan's Darfur region, the AU failed to stop the violence in the first years of the conflict, struggling with shortages of equipment and funds to even protect themselves.
Hand-wringing and appeals for peace apart, African leaders have appeared unwilling to wade into Kenya's crisis, with the exception of President Yoweri Museveni of neighbouring Uganda, the only African head of state to recognise Kibaki's election.
That reflects the hands-off approach of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the AU's predecessor, which tended to keep out of its members' internal affairs.
"The reason the OAU fell apart is it never had any authority because it never did anything," said Chatham House's Cargill.
"The African Union has bold ambitions, and to some extent it's trying to live up to them ... The fact it's prepared to keep having a go, is a start."