Nairobi — It looked like a drastic fallout between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Agriculture minister William Ruto.
But the spat over the Mau Forest issue was just the trigger to bring to the open long-simmering tensions.
Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto, at the head of their Luo and Kalenjin communities, were the key figures in the ODM grouping that threatened to sweep President Kibaki out of office at the last elections.
They were also seen as the most influential figures behind the unrest that eventually forced the formation of the Grand Coalition Government to end the violent reaction to the 2007 election results.
No sooner had the ODM presidential candidate been installed as Prime Minister, however, than fractures in relations started showing.Earlier, it was on the Cabinet and other appointments where Rift Valley MPs claimed they were short-changed.
There was Mr Ruto's loud campaign to get a leg up over Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi in the ODM pecking order, eventually being placated with a post as joint deputy party leader.
The bitter new divisions have just brought things to a head. And, the Mau issue has exploded at a time when there are other tensions between the two men.
Mr Odinga and President Kibaki have been at the forefront for a Local Tribunal for post-election violence suspects. Mr Ruto and Rift Valley MPs, who fear they would be lynched by such a mechanism, were out-rightly opposed.
By a strange confluence of events, a group of Central Kenya politicians led by Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta were also against the Special Local Tribunal.
Some were simply keen to see Rift Valley politicians they held responsible for the terror that befell central Kenya settlers in the province be made to pay.
Others feared that they too might be in the famous Waki envelope of key suspects because of the role they might have played in financing and organising resistance.
Another point of view from central Kenya is it is time to pursue healing and reconciliation in the Rift Valley between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin, rather than revenge and punishment.
In the past few days as matters over both the Mau and The Hague came to a head, President Kibaki was in Mr Odinga's Luo Nyanza bastion on a tour that is of great political significance.
There were even suggestion that the visit marked the building of a new alliance that would have a bearing on Mr Odinga's quest for the top job in 2012, a job Mr Ruto has indicated he will also aim for.
So has Mr Kenyatta, whose association with Mr Ruto in recent months has sparked off speculation about a political alliance in the making.
As President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga were eating together and putting on a grand public display of mutual affection in the latter's' stronghold; Mr Kenyatta was releasing a statement that supported Mr Ruto and hit out at the Prime Minister on the impasse over compensation for the Mau Forest settlers targeted for eviction.
At the simple, level it might be interpreted that Mr Kenyatta was simply supporting a political ally or courting a constituency he badly needs ahead of 2012, even at the risk of being seen to be indifferent towards destruction of the Mau or alienating his own base.
Big losers
But what really drives him, is a firm conviction that if land issues in the Rift Valley and the resultant bloody conflicts-in which the Kikuyu are invariably the big losers-are to be resolved, then it must be through reconciliation and dialogue.
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This applies whether it is justice for post-election violence or forcible eviction of settlers in the Mau Forest.
The ruckus has put other contenders, especially within PNU, in the shade. Internal Security minister George Saitoti has been Mr Kenyatta's key rival to secure the central Kenya bloc.
Keep distance
Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has assiduously tried to woo central Kenya, sometimes seemingly in alliance with Mr Kenyatta.
All have kept their distance from the ongoing rows, but are been keenly studying the fallout.
Whether it results in a major reshaping of alliances remains to be seen, but one can confidently state that relations between Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto, or between Luo and Kalenjin blocs, may never be the same again.