Kenyan media called on feuding politicians on Saturday to end a crisis that has killed 500 people since President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election, forecasting dark days ahead.

Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to lead a new push for peace in east Africa's biggest economy. But the opposition, which accuses Kibaki of rigging the December 27 polls, is planning new protests after African Union talks collapsed.

"Recalling the lives lost and destruction visited on this country, both sides should pause a little and consider whether they want to be responsible for any chain of events that could wreck Kenya," the Daily Nation newspaper said in an editorial.

"Anyone who thinks the government can merely sit tight and wait for things to calm down would be deluding himself."

The unrest in once-stable Kenya has badly dented the nation's democratic credentials, worried world powers and damaged its previously booming economy.

Around the country, the United Nations estimates that 500,000 Kenyans will need emergency aid including food handouts following two weeks of riots and ethnic bloodletting.

Fears have grown of further violence after Raila Odinga's opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) vowed to hold three days of protests beginning with a mass demonstration in Nairobi on Wednesday. Police have banned all political rallies.

"Given the government's intransigence and ODM's unrelenting demand for justice, the days ahead are bound to be the most difficult ... there is a dark, ominous cloud hovering above us," the Standard newspaper said.

"COMPLETE ANARCHY"

Parliament, where Odinga's party won 99 seats to 43 for Kibaki's Party of National Unity, is due to resume business on Tuesday and that is likely to prove another flashpoint.

Since being sworn-in after a ballot that foreign monitors said fell short of democratic standards, Kibaki has looked to entrench himself by leading state functions, recalling legislators and naming most of a new cabinet.

On Friday, the Orange Democratic Movement called for international sanctions on his team. But analysts say protests appear to be the only way for Odinga to maintain pressure.

The prospect of more turmoil has dismayed many Kenyans, already enduring one of the worst episodes in four and a half decades since independence from Britain. More than 250,000 Kenyans have been made homeless.

Annan is expected in Kenya in the coming week to try to mediate after AU chief and Ghanaian President John Kufuor failed to broker a deal.

But the Nation newspaper warned that he might have little to work with if more violence erupts.

"A cycle of attack and counter-attack could lead to complete anarchy," it said, urging Kibaki and Odinga to realise that millions of Kenyans were looking to them.

"If this country goes down the drain, history will not record the hardliners in their respective entourages, but the principals who will bear personal responsibility."