Kenya's parliament is set to open Tuesday for the first time since flawed presidential elections last month touched off a wave of violence in the usually peaceful country that has killed at least 575 people, according to the Kenyan Red Cross Society.

The opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is set to take its seats alongside President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU), as well as a myriad of smaller parties that are expected to form key alliances with each party that will see one or the other control the house.

Neither party has the majority. Defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga's ODM has 99 seats in the 210-seat parliament, while PNU has 43 seats.

The lawmakers are set to choose a parliamentary speakers and each major party will depend on the smaller ones for support of their preferred candidate.

The members of parliament are set to be sworn in as well, but analysts predicted mayhem in the house with ODM members threatening to sit in seats belonging to government legislators, which may anger Kibaki's supporters and possibly have the ODM members evicted from the house.

"There might be a standoff and it might lead to a fracas within parliament," said Macharia Gaitho, a political commentator with the independent Daily Nation newspaper. That, in turn he said, could set off anger amongst Odinga backers and possibly more violence.

In its editorial pages Monday, the Daily Nation urged politicians to remain calm in the house and not turn violent, but rather use political means to solve the impasse.

"The opposition has the rare opportunity to make use of its majority, both to paralyze the normal functioning of government, and also to push through its own legislative agenda, that could go a long way towards redressing its grievances," it wrote.

While the presidential polls were largely seen as flawed by both local and international observers, the parliamentary vote, held on the same day, were deemed credible and saw a vote of no confidence in Kibaki's government as more than half of his cabinet was ousted.

The reopening of parliament coincides with the arrival of another international mediation team, part of a string of reconciliation efforts attempting to bring some political resolution to the quagmire which all but brought to a halt East Africa's largest economy.

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is set to meet with both leaders, although senior PNU members have rejected the encounter, saying Annan was not invited by the government.

The violence in Kenya has displaced nearly 300,000 people and Kenyans braced themselves for more unrest this week as the opposition called for continued rallies in some 25 cities across the country from Wednesday to Friday. The government has banned the protests.