Nairobi - Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has warned that new elections may be the only way to solve an ever-widening rift in the coalition government formed early in 2008 to end the post-election violence that ripped the county apart. Odinga is battling Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka for control of government business in parliament.

Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) says the constitution gave the president the right to appoint Musyoka as the head of government business.

Odingai is furious, believing it is part of attempts to sideline him.

"I cannot exercise the role of the prime minister when I am outside parliament while a different person assumes my responsibilities in the August house," he told a rally in his Kibera constituency on Sunday.

The parliament speaker is expected to issue a ruling on Tuesday.

The fight is just the latest crack in a coalition that appears to be falling apart.

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement has walked out of talks aimed at healing the rift and has said it will boycott cabinet meetings.

Odinga has also criticized Kibaki, calling his style of governing "primitive."

The coalition has been lambasted for bickering instead of bringing about promised reforms. Several corruption scandals have also blotted its copybook.

There are fears that a collapse of the coalition could spark a repeat of the ethnic violence that saw over 1,500 killed and 300,000 displaced after Odinga's supporters claimed he had been cheated out of victory in December 2007's presidential elections .