Mwai Kibaki
Encyclopedia
Mwai Kibaki is the current and third President
of the republic of Kenya
.
Kibaki was previously Vice President
of Kenya for ten years from 1978–1988 and also held cabinet ministerial positions, including a widely acclaimed stint as Minister for Finance (1969–1981), Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991).
After resigning as a cabinet minister in 1991, Kibaki served as an opposition
Member of Parliament from 1991 up to his election as Kenya's third president in 2002 after two unsuccessful bids for the Kenyan presidency in 1992 and 1997.
He was sworn in on the night of 30 December 2007 for his second term as president after controversially emerging as the winner of a bitterly contested election that was marked by accusations of fraud and widespread irregularities that led to civil unrest.
village in Othaya
division of Nyeri District
. He is the youngest son of Kikuyu peasants Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ (both now deceased). Though baptized as Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries in his youth, he has been known for all intents and purposes as Mwai Kibaki. Family oral history maintains that his early education was made possible by his much older brother-in-law, Paul Muruthi, who insisted that young Mwai should go to school instead of spending his days grazing his father's sheep and cattle and baby-sitting his little nephews and nieces for his older sister.
Kibaki turned out to be an exemplary student. He attended Gatuyainĩ School for the first two years, where he completed what was then called Sub "A" and sub "B" (the equivalent of standard one and two or first and second grade). He then joined Karima mission school for the three more classes of primary school. He then moved to Mathari School (now Nyeri High School
) between 1944 and 1946 for Standard four to six, where, in addition to his academic studies, he learnt carpentry and masonry as students would repair furniture and provide material for maintaining the school's buildings. He also grew his own food as all students in the school were expected to do, and earned extra money during the school holidays by working as a conductor on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union. After Karima Primary and Nyeri Boarding primary schools, he proceeded to Mang'u High School
where he studied between 1947 and 1950. He passed with a maximum of six points in his "O" level examination.
Influenced by the veterans of the First
and Second World Wars in his native village, Kibaki considered becoming a soldier in his final year in Mang'u. However, a ruling by the Chief colonial secretary, Walter Coutts, which barred the recruitment of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru communities into the army, put paid to his military aspirations. Kibaki instead attended Makerere University
in Kampala
, Uganda, where he studied Economics, History and Political Science
, and graduated best in his class in 1955 with a First Class Honours Degree (BA) in Economics. After his graduation, Kibaki took up an appointment as Assistant Sales Manager Shell Company of East Africa, Uganda Division. During the same year, he earned a scholarship entitling him to postgraduate studies in any British University. He consequently enrolled at the prestigious London School of Economics
for a B.Sc in public finance, graduating with a distinction. He went back to Makerere in 1958 where he taught as an Assistant Lecturer in the economics department until 1960. In 1962, Kibaki married Lucy Muthoni
, the daughter of a Church Minister, who was then a secondary school Head Teacher.
(KANU), at the request of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga
(who went on to become Kenya's first Vice President). Kibaki then helped to draft Kenya's independence constitution
.
In 1963, Kibaki was elected as Member of Parliament for Donholm Constituency
(subsequently called Bahati and now known as Makadara) in Nairobi
. His election was the start of a long political career. In 1963 Kibaki was appointed the Permanent Secretary for the Treasury. Appointed Assistant Minister of Finance and chairman of the Economic Planning Commission in 1963, he was promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966. In 1969, he became Minister of Finance and Economic Planning where he served until 1982.
In 1974, Kibaki, facing serious competition for his Doonholm Constituency seat from a Mrs. Jael Mbogo, whom he had only narrowly and controversially beaten for the seat in the 1969 elections, moved his political base from Nairobi
to his rural home, Othaya, where he was subsequently elected as Member of Parliament. The same year Time magazine rated him among the top 100 people in the world who had the potential to lead. He has been re-elected Member of Parliament for Othaya in the subsequent elections of 1979, 1983, 1988, 1992,1997,2002 and 2007.
When Daniel arap Moi
succeeded Jomo Kenyatta
as President of Kenya in 1978, Kibaki was elevated to Vice Presidency
, and kept the Finance portfolio until Moi changed his ministerial portfolio from Finance to Home Affairs in 1982. When Kibaki was the minister of Finance Kenya enjoyed a period of relative prosperity, fueled by a commodities boom, especially coffee, with remarkable fiscal discipline and sound monetary policies.
Kibaki fell out of favour with President Moi in 1988, and was dropped as Vice President and moved to the Ministry of Health. He seemingly took the demotion in his stride without much ado.
Kibaki's political style during these years was described as gentlemanly and non confrontational. This mild style also exposed him to criticism that he was a spineless, or even cowardly, politician who never took a stand- "He never saw a fence he didn't sit on",so went the joke. He also,as the political circumstances of the time dictated, projected himself as a loyal stalwart of the then ruling single party, KANU.In the months before multiparty politics were introduced in 1992, he infamously declared that agitating for multi party democracy and trying to dislodge KANU from power was like "trying to cut down a fig tree with a razor blade".
It was therefore with great surprise that the country received the news of Kibaki's resignation from government and leaving KANU on Christmas Day in December 1991, only days after the repeal of Section 2A of the Constitution, which restored the multi-party system
of government. Soon after his resignation,Kibaki founded the Democratic Party (DP)
. and entered the presidential race in the up coming multi party elections of 1992. He was criticised as a "johnny come lately" opportunist who, unlike his two main opposition presidential election opponents in that year, Kenneth Matiba
and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was taking advantage of multipartysm despite not having fought for it .
Kibaki came third in the subsequent presidential elections of 1992, when the divided opposition lost to president Moi and KANU despite having received more than two thirds of the vote. He then came second to Moi in the 1997 elections, when again, Moi beat a divided opposition to retain the presidency. In January 1998, Kibaki became the leader of the official opposition with the Democratic Party being the official opposition party in Parliament.
(NAK). A group of disappointed KANU presidential aspirants then quit KANU in protest after being overlooked by outgoing President Moi when Moi had founding Father Jomo Kenyatta
's son, Uhuru Kenyatta
, nominated to be the KANU presidential candidate, and hurriedly formed the Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP). NAK later combined with the LDP,to form the National Rainbow Coalition
(NARC). On 14 October 2002, at a large opposition rally in Uhuru
Park, Nairobi
, Kibaki was nominated the NARC opposition alliance presidential candidate after Raila Odinga made the famous declaration, Kibaki Tosha!
On 3 December 2002, Kibaki was injured in a road accident while on his way back to Nairobi from a campaign meeting at Machakos junction 40 km From Nairobi. He was subsequently hospitalized in Nairobi
, then London, after sustaining fracture injuries in the accident. He still walks rather awkwardly as a result of those injuries.The rest of his presidential campaign was thus conducted by his NARC colleagues in his absence, led by Raila Odinga
who campaigned tirelessly for Kibaki after stating that"The captain has been injured in the field... but the rest of the team shall continue."
On 27 December 2002, Kibaki and NARC won a landslide victory over KANU, with Kibaki getting 62% of the votes in the presidential elections, against only 31% for the KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta
.
in a boisterous, chaotic and jubilant ceremony held at the open grounds of Uhuru Park, Nairobi.. "I am inheriting a country which has been badly ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude," he stated at his swearing-in, as quoted by Andrew England of the Associated Press
. With Moi looking on, Kibaki reiterated his pledge to end government corruption. "The era of anything goes is now gone forever," he was quoted by Marc Lacey of the New York Times as having said. "Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals".
Thus ended four decades of KANU rule, KANU having hitherto ruled Kenya since independence. President Daniel Arap Moi, who had been Kenya's second president for 24 years since 1978, also began his retirement.
years- a feat that was largely attained in the face of great challenges,including the President's ill health at the time, and political tension culminating in the break-up of the NARC coalition.The introduction of free primary education, was a great milestone.
In late January 2003, it was announced that the President had been admitted to Nairobi Hospital to have a blood clot – the after-effect of his car accident – removed from his leg. He came out of hospital and addressed the public outside the hospital on TV in a visibly incoherent manner,and speculation since then is that he had suffered a stroke, his second, the first being said to have occurred sometimes in the 70s. His subsequent ill health greatly diminished his performance during his first term and the affairs of government during that time are said to have been largely run by a group of loyal aides, both in and out of government, most of whom were his Kikuyu and Meru buddies. Kibaki did not look good, for instance, when he appeared live on TV on 25 September 2003 to appoint Moody Awori
Vice President after the death in office of Vice President, Michael Wamalwa Kijana
.
In November 2004, in an ABC Prime Time interview with Peter Jennings
, former US President Bill Clinton
identified Kibaki as the one living person he would most like to meet "because of the Kenyan government's decision to abolish school fees for primary education". Clinton added that, by providing free and compulsory primary education, what Kibaki had done would affect more lives than any president had done or would ever do by the end of the year. The free education programme saw nearly 1.7 million more pupils enroll in school by the end of that year. Clinton's wish was granted when he visited Kenya in the summer of 2005 and finally met president Kibaki on 22 July.
The 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum was held on 21 November 2005.The main issue of contention in the Constitution review process was how much power should be vested in the Kenyan Presidency. In previous drafts, those who feared a concentration of power in the president added provisions for European-style power-sharing between a ceremonial President elected via universal suffrage and an executive Prime Minister elected by Parliament. The draft presented by the Attorney General Amos Wako for the referendum retained sweeping powers for the Presidency.
Though supported by Kibaki, some members of his own cabinet, mainly from the LDP wing led by Raila Odinga, and the main opposition party KANU, mobilised a powerful NO campaign that resulted in a majority of 58% Kenyan voters rejecting the draft.
As a consequence of,and immediately after, the referendum loss,on 23 November 2005,Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet in the middle of his administration's term, the aim being to purge all Raila allied ministers from the cabinet. About his decision Kibaki said, “Following the results of the Referendum, it has become necessary for me, as the President of the Republic, to re-organise my Government to make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya". The only members of the cabinet office to be spared a midterm exit were the Vice President and Minister of Home Affairs, Moody Awori
, and the Attorney General
whose position is constitutionally protected. A new cabinet of Kibaki loyalists, including MPs from the opposition, termed the Government of National Unity (GNU), was thereafter appointed, but some MPs who were offered ministerial positions declined to take up posts.
A recent report by a Kenyan Commission of Inquiry, the Waki Commission
, contextualizes the issues and events on page 30 as follows:-
. On 16 September 2007, Kibaki announced that he would stand as the candidate of a new alliance incorporating all the parties who supported his re-election, called the Party of National Unity
. The parties in his alliance included the much diminished former ruling KANU
. DP
, Narc-Kenya
, Ford-Kenya, Ford People
, and Shirikisho.
Kibaki's main opponent, Raila Odinga
, had used the referendum victory to launch the ODM
, which nominated him as its presidential Candidate for the 2007 elections.
On 30 September 2007, a robust and much healthier President Kibaki launched his presidential campaign at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi.
Kalonzo Musyoka
then broke away from Raila's ODM
to mount his own fringe bid for the presidency,thus narrowing down the contest between the main candidates, Kibaki, the incumbent, and Odinga. Opinion polls up to election day showed Kibaki behind Raila Odinga
nationally, but closing. On regional analysis, the polls showed him behind Raila in all regions of the country except Central Province, Embu and Meru,where he was projected to take most of the votes, and behind Kalonzo Musyoka in Kalonzo's native Ukambani. It was thus projected to be a close election between Kibaki and Raila.
After intense, expensive and vigorous campaigns, the election was held on 27 December 2007, and went on peacefully and orderly.
,overnight re-tallying of results and chaotic scenes, all beamed live on TV, at the national tallying center at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi
,riot police eventually sealed off the tallying Center ahead of the result announcement, evicted party agents, observers and the media, and moved the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu,to another room where Kivuitu went on to declare Kibaki the winner by 4,584,721 votes to Odinga's 4,352,993, placing Kibaki ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes in the hotly contested election with Kalonzo Musyoka
a distant third.
One hour later, in a hastily convened dusk ceremony, Kibaki was furtively sworn in at the grounds of State House Nairobi for his second term, defiantly calling for the "verdict of the people" to be respected and for "healing and reconciliation" to begin.
Immediately the results were announced, Odinga bitterly accused Kibaki of electoral fraud. Odinga's allegations scored with his supporters, and seemed meritorious since the results had defied pre-election polls and expectations and election day exit polls. Furthermore,Odinga, who had run an anti–Kikuyu campaign, had won the votes of most of the other Kenyan tribes and regions, with Kibaki's victory being attained only with the near exclusive support of the populous Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities-who had turned up to vote for Kibaki in large numbers after feeling,in reaction to the Odinga campaign, and with the covert encouragement of the Kibaki campaign, increasingly besieged and threatened by the pro-Odinga tribes. Moreover, ODM had won the most parliamentary and local authority seats by a wide margin. A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair. The European Union
chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, cited one constituency where his monitors saw official results for Kibaki that were 25,000 votes lower than the figure subsequently announced by the Electoral Commission."Because of this and other observed irregularities, doubt remains as to the accuracy of the result of the presidential election as announced today," he said.
It was a low point in Kibaki's political career, during which he also showed a hitherto unknown harder side of him. The media captured the events and reactions at the time thus:"Previously regarded as a gentlemanly leader with a passion for golf, Kibaki has revealed a steely side. ...With a reputation as a mild-mannered, old-school gentleman,... Kibaki, 76, showed a steely core by swearing himself in within an hour of being pronounced victor in an election denounced as fraudulent by opposition challenger Raila Odinga and questioned by international and Kenyan observers.Odinga's supporters said he would be declared president at a rival ceremony on Monday, but police banned the event [and hundreds of riot police sealed off the proposed venue, Uhuru Park for several days]."This is the saddest day in the history of democracy in this country. It is a coup d'etat," said Koki Muli, head of respected local watchdog, the Institute of Education in Democracy. " In truth,the election was more of a draw, so close that the official inquiry of the election concluded it was impossible to conclusively establish who between Kibaki and Raila won.
Opposition supporters saw the result as a plot by Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest, to keep power by any means.Feeling cheated and extremely bitter, and also fueled by other long standing perceived grievances, the tribes that lost the election could not contemplate five years without political power and anti-Kikuyu sentiment swelled. Thus began the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis
, as violence broke out in several places in the country, started by the ODM supporters protesting the "stealing" of their "victory", and subsequently escalating as the targeted Kikuyus retaliated. As unrest spread, television and radio stations were instructed to stop all live broadcasts.
There was a major breakdown of law an order in several cities and regions, and the situation threatened to escalate into a cataclysmic disintegration of the country as whole areas began to be ethnically cleansed amidst threats of regions seceding from the country and leaving central Kenya "an Island like Lesotho
". There was also widespread theft,vandalism, looting and destruction of property, and a significant number of atrocities,killings and sexual violence were reported. A subsequent United Nations report stated that more than 1,200 Kenyans were reported killed, thousands more injured, over 300,000 people displaced and around 42,000 houses,farms and many businesses,looted or destroyed.
The violence continued for more than two months, as Kibaki ruled with "half" a cabinet he had appointed, with Odinga and ODM refusing to recognize him as president.
with a Panel of “Eminent African Personalities” backed by the African Union
, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Following the mediation, a deal, called the national accord, was signed in February 2008 between Raila Odinga
and Kibaki,now referred to as the "two Principals". The accord, later passed by the Kenyan Parliament as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008
provided inter alia for power-sharing, with Kibaki remaining President and Raila Odinga
taking a newly re-created post of Prime Minister.
On 17 April 2008, Raila Odinga
was sworn in as Prime Minister, along with a power-sharing Cabinet, with 42 ministers and 50 assistant ministers, Kenya's largest ever. The cabinet is fifty percent Kibaki appointed ministers and fifty percent Raila appointed ministers, and is in reality a carefully balanced ethnic coalition
. The arrangement, which also includes Kalonzo Musyoka
as Vice President, is known as the "Grand Coalition Government".
The improved management of the economy during the Kibaki presidency has seen continued Kenya GDP growth from a low 0.6% (real −1.6%) in 2002 to 3% in 2003, 4.9% in 2004, 5.8% in 2005, 6% in 2006 and 7% 2007, a very significant recovery from the preceding near total economic collapse and decay .
The President has also overseen the coming into being of the Vision 2030
, a development plan aimed at raising GDP growth to 10% annually and transforming Kenya into a middle income country, which he unveiled on 30 October 2006.
Many sectors of the economy have recovered from total collapse pre-2003. Numerous state corporations that had collapsed during the Moi years have been revived and are performing profitably. The telecommunications sector is booming. Rebuilding, modernization and expansion of infrastructure has been going on in earnest, with several ambitious infrastructural and other projects, which would have been seen as unattainable pipe dreams during the bland and largely stagnant Moi years, planned or ongoing. The country's cities and towns are also being positively renewed and transformed.
Development is also ongoing in all areas of the country including Kenya's hitherto neglected and thus largely undeveloped semi-arid or arid north. Further, it was during the Kibaki presidency that the Constituency Development Fund, CDF, was introduced in 2003. The fund was designed to support constituency-level, grass-root development projects. It was aimed to achieve equitable distribution of development resources across regions and to control imbalances in regional development brought about by partisan politics. It targeted all constituency-level development projects, particularly those aiming to combat poverty at the grassroots. The CDF program has facilitated the putting up of new water, health and education facilities in all parts of the country including remote areas that were usually overlooked during funds allocation in national budgets.
The president has also overseen a reduction of Kenya's dependence on aid by western donors(which still remains significant though),with the country being increasingly funded by internally generated resources,tax revenue collection having grown tremendously during his term, and also by increasing investment,grants and loans by non-western countries, mainly Japan, People's Republic of China and the Middle East, and to a lessor extent investment by South African,Libyan and Nigerian corporations, and even Iran.
President Kibaki's style is that of a competent technocrat, as opposed to the populist buffoonery, or strongman dictatorship, so common in Africa. He,unlike his predecessors,has not tried to establish a personality cult. He has not had his portrait on every unit of Kenya's currency, neither has he had all manner of streets, places and institutions named after him. He has not had state sanctioned praise songs composed in his honour, does not seek to dominate and lead all news bulletins with reports of his presidential activities, and does not engage in the populist sloganeering of his predecessors.
Kenya is also much more democratic and freer in the Kibaki era than it was during the Kenyatta and Moi eras.
When he came to power in 2003, President Kibaki rolled out free learning both in primary and later in secondary schools. Enrolment in primary schools has climbed from six million in 2002 to 9.3 million in 2010, while the subsidised secondary education has helped push enrolment from 882,000 in 2003 to 1.7 million in 2010.
President Kibaki is the first leader in the East Africa and may be in Africa to bring into place a new constitution, that deprives the presidency off powers and not hang around in power like most African leaders.
Kibaki is a laid back type of a leader, who shows no desire in publicity, thus giving his political opponents a benefit of describing him. He will be remembered much for the free education, new and high profile constitution, media freedom, better economy and infrastructural development. For those who look for minor negatives, they will find much to discredit president Kibaki.
;addressing the fundamental problem of the country's wealth, income and development inequalities; eliminating tribalism,and fostering national unity and cohesion;reduction of youth unemployment and crime; and facilitating generational change- as elaborated below. Tribalism and corruption still remain major tools of acquiring and maintaining political power in Kenya. As a result,all the good work the president has done remains at risk of being all undone, as it was to a significant extent by the post- 2007 election violence, and Kenya remains at risk of becoming a failed state.
The President has been criticized for poor political management of the country, and apparent failure to unite, and amply manage the competing interests of, Kenya's various tribes. As a result, the country remains at the risk of tearing apart, and the President and his allies need to do more to prevent the country's balkanization into ethnic enclaves especially after benefiting from tribalism during elections.
He has also been accused of ruling with a small group of his elderly peers,mainly from the educated side of the Kikuyu elite that emerged in the Kenyatta years,usually referred to as the "Kitchen Cabinet" or the "Mount Kenya
Mafia". There is therefore the perception that his is a Kikuyu presidency . This perception was reinforced when the President was seen to have trashed the pre- 2002 election Memorandum of Understanding with the Raila Odinga
led Liberal Democratic Party, and was further reinforced by his disputed 2007 election victory over the Raila Odinga
led ODM Party being achieved nearly exclusively with the votes of the populous Mt. Kenya Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities.
The Commission of Inquiry Into Post Election Violence [CIPEV]put it thus :-
The President, who was elected in 2002 on a reform platform, is also yet to deliver long clamored for fundamental reforms and a new constitution, instead maintaining the status quo ante which he helped to establish and was a major part of, and thus keeping the overwhelming presidential powers granted by Kenya's current constitution. It does also seem that his template is the presidency of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta
, and that a major aim of his presidency is the preservation of the elite that emerged during the Kenyatta years, which he is part of, along with the system that made that elite and so much preserves and favours it. The general feeling of disappointed Kenyans, so optimistic after the 2002 “revolution” is amply captured by the following quote from T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom “... when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew.”
Though the President has never personally been accused of corruption, and has managed to virtually end the grabbing of public land rampant in the Moi and Kenyatta eras, he is yet to adequately contain Kenya's endemic corruption. Elected on an anti-corruption platform, one of President Kibaki's first acts a president was to appoint John Githongo
, a prominent anti-corruption activist, as Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics, reporting directly to him. Three years later, a frustrated Githongo resigned this position, citing the impossibility of his position in a situation of such widespread and high level corruption, and went into exile in London. In the Anglo-Leasing scandal
, which Githongo played a major role in uncovering, senior politicians including several Ministers and the Vice President Moody Awori
were alleged to be closely involved. Githongo has also highlighted the unwillingness of President Kibaki to address these allegations, suggesting that Kibaki himself is therefore personally implicated. To date despite the efforts of John Githongo and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) through numerous investigations and prosecution of cases, no high-profile figures have been convicted in court on corruption charges. On 15 November 2006 Kiraitu Murungi
, who had "stepped aside"to allow for independent investigations of corruption allegations in the Anglo-Leasing scandal
, was reappointed as Energy Minister, and George Saitoti
, who had been previously accused in connection with the Goldenberg scandal
, was reinstated as Education Minister.Both ministers were said to have been exonerated in the resultant investigations. Author MICHELA WRONG, in her book on Githogo, describes the situation thus:-
The President's style of a seemingly aloof withdrawn technocrat or intellectual
makes him come across as a seemingly snobbish upper class urbanite who is out of touch with the ordinary Kenyan. The President's aloof "delegation style" also makes his governments,especially at cabinet level, seem dysfunctional and chaotic.
Another major problem that the President is only just beginning to adequately address youth unemployment, and soaring crime mainly perpetrated by frustrated youth on the wrong side of the wide poor-rich divide in the country.
The president has from time to time addressed the above issues, as he did for instance, in his Madaraka Day speech delivered to the nation on 1 June 2009.
President Kibaki is officially married to Lucy Muthoni. They together have four children: Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai, and Tony Githinji. They also have three grandchildren: Joy Jamie Marie, Mwai Junior and Krystina Muthoni. Jimmy Kibaki has begun to emerge as a politician in his own right, likely to be his father's political heir.
In 2004 the media reported that Kibaki has a second spouse allegedly married under customary law, Mary Wambui
, and a daughter, Wangui Mwai
. After the news broke, the State House released an unsigned statement that Kibaki's only immediate family is his wife, Lucy and their four children. The Washington Post termed the entire scandal as a "new Kenyan soap opera". In 2009, Kibaki, accompanied by a furious Lucy Kibaki, held a press conference to re-state to the world that he only has one wife.
President Kibaki is known to be a keen golfer and is one of the longtime members of the Muthaiga Golf Club.
He is a practicing Christian and belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
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Heads of state of Kenya
-Heads of State of Kenya :-Affiliations:*KANU - Kenya African National Union*PNU - Party of National Unity-Latest election:-See also:*List of colonial heads of Kenya*Kenya**Heads of Government of Kenya**Vice-Presidents of Kenya...
of the republic of Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
.
Kibaki was previously Vice President
Vice-President of Kenya
The Vice-President of Kenya is the second-highest executive official in the Kenyan government.-List of Vice-Presidents of Kenya:*Jaramogi Oginga Odinga *Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi *Daniel arap Moi...
of Kenya for ten years from 1978–1988 and also held cabinet ministerial positions, including a widely acclaimed stint as Minister for Finance (1969–1981), Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991).
After resigning as a cabinet minister in 1991, Kibaki served as an opposition
Opposition (parliamentary)
Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. Note that this article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state...
Member of Parliament from 1991 up to his election as Kenya's third president in 2002 after two unsuccessful bids for the Kenyan presidency in 1992 and 1997.
He was sworn in on the night of 30 December 2007 for his second term as president after controversially emerging as the winner of a bitterly contested election that was marked by accusations of fraud and widespread irregularities that led to civil unrest.
Early life and education
Kibaki was born in GatuyainiGatuyaini
Gatuyaini is a village in Othaya division of Nyeri District, Kenya. It is part of Othaya town council and Othaya Constituency. The village is home to Gatuyaini Primary School.People from Gatuyaini include Mwai Kibaki, president from 2002.- References :...
village in Othaya
Othaya
Othaya is a Kenyan town about 150 kilometres north of Nairobi, the capital. It has a population of 21,427, of which 4,108 are core urban ; the majority of the residents are of the Kikuyu tribe. Othaya is part of the Nyeri District. It is an agricultural area with coffee and tea as the main cash crops...
division of Nyeri District
Nyeri District
Nyeri District is a district in the Central Province of Kenya. Its headquarters is in Nyeri town. It has a population of 661,156 and an area of 3,356 km².The district is located on the southwest flank of Mount Kenya...
. He is the youngest son of Kikuyu peasants Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ (both now deceased). Though baptized as Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries in his youth, he has been known for all intents and purposes as Mwai Kibaki. Family oral history maintains that his early education was made possible by his much older brother-in-law, Paul Muruthi, who insisted that young Mwai should go to school instead of spending his days grazing his father's sheep and cattle and baby-sitting his little nephews and nieces for his older sister.
Kibaki turned out to be an exemplary student. He attended Gatuyainĩ School for the first two years, where he completed what was then called Sub "A" and sub "B" (the equivalent of standard one and two or first and second grade). He then joined Karima mission school for the three more classes of primary school. He then moved to Mathari School (now Nyeri High School
Nyeri High School
Nyeri High School, also known as Nyeri High, is a boys boarding school situated in Nyeri, Kenya near Mathari Consolata Mission Hospital which provides secondary education according to the 8-4-4 Curriculum...
) between 1944 and 1946 for Standard four to six, where, in addition to his academic studies, he learnt carpentry and masonry as students would repair furniture and provide material for maintaining the school's buildings. He also grew his own food as all students in the school were expected to do, and earned extra money during the school holidays by working as a conductor on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union. After Karima Primary and Nyeri Boarding primary schools, he proceeded to Mang'u High School
Mang'u High School
Mang'u High School is a national high school established in 1925, located near Thika, Kenya.-History:The school was started in 1925 by a Dutch priest, Father Witte, C.S.Sp. at Kabaa. In 1939, the school was moved to a new site at Mang'u Village on 22 acres of land and because of accessibility it...
where he studied between 1947 and 1950. He passed with a maximum of six points in his "O" level examination.
Influenced by the veterans of the First
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and Second World Wars in his native village, Kibaki considered becoming a soldier in his final year in Mang'u. However, a ruling by the Chief colonial secretary, Walter Coutts, which barred the recruitment of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru communities into the army, put paid to his military aspirations. Kibaki instead attended Makerere University
Makerere University
Makerere University , Uganda's largest and second-oldest higher institution of learning, , was first established as a technical school in 1922. In 1963 it became the University of East Africa, offering courses leading to general degrees from the University of London...
in Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
, Uganda, where he studied Economics, History and Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, and graduated best in his class in 1955 with a First Class Honours Degree (BA) in Economics. After his graduation, Kibaki took up an appointment as Assistant Sales Manager Shell Company of East Africa, Uganda Division. During the same year, he earned a scholarship entitling him to postgraduate studies in any British University. He consequently enrolled at the prestigious London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
for a B.Sc in public finance, graduating with a distinction. He went back to Makerere in 1958 where he taught as an Assistant Lecturer in the economics department until 1960. In 1962, Kibaki married Lucy Muthoni
Lucy Kibaki
Lucy Muthoni Kibaki is the wife of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, making her the First Lady of Kenya.She is a controversial figure in Kenya, due to her independent persona and her temper.-Biography:...
, the daughter of a Church Minister, who was then a secondary school Head Teacher.
1960–2002
In early 1960,Mwai Kibaki left academia for politics when he gave up his job at Makerere and returned to Kenya to become executive officer of Kenya African National UnionKenya African National Union
The Kenya African National Union, better known as KANU is a political party which ruled Kenya for nearly 40 years after its independence from British colonial rule in 1963, until its electoral loss at the end of 2002...
(KANU), at the request of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga
Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga was a Luo Chief, who became a prominent figure in Kenya's struggle for independence. He later served as Kenya's first Vice-President, and thereafter as opposition leader...
(who went on to become Kenya's first Vice President). Kibaki then helped to draft Kenya's independence constitution
Lancaster House Conferences (Kenya)
The Lancaster House conferences were three meetings in which Kenya's constitutional framework and independence were negotiated.*The first conference was under the chairmanship of Secretary of State for the Colonies Ian Macleod in 1960...
.
In 1963, Kibaki was elected as Member of Parliament for Donholm Constituency
Makadara Constituency
Makadara Constituency is an electoral constituency in Kenya. It is one of eight constituencies of Nairobi Province. It consists of central and south of central areas of Nairobi. Makadara constituency has common boundaries with Makadara Division of Nairobi. The entire constituency is located within...
(subsequently called Bahati and now known as Makadara) in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
. His election was the start of a long political career. In 1963 Kibaki was appointed the Permanent Secretary for the Treasury. Appointed Assistant Minister of Finance and chairman of the Economic Planning Commission in 1963, he was promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966. In 1969, he became Minister of Finance and Economic Planning where he served until 1982.
In 1974, Kibaki, facing serious competition for his Doonholm Constituency seat from a Mrs. Jael Mbogo, whom he had only narrowly and controversially beaten for the seat in the 1969 elections, moved his political base from Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
to his rural home, Othaya, where he was subsequently elected as Member of Parliament. The same year Time magazine rated him among the top 100 people in the world who had the potential to lead. He has been re-elected Member of Parliament for Othaya in the subsequent elections of 1979, 1983, 1988, 1992,1997,2002 and 2007.
When Daniel arap Moi
Daniel arap Moi
Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was the President of Kenya from 1978 until 2002.Daniel arap Moi is popularly known to Kenyans as 'Nyayo', a Swahili word for 'footsteps'...
succeeded Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyattapron.] served as the first Prime Minister and President of Kenya. He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation....
as President of Kenya in 1978, Kibaki was elevated to Vice Presidency
Vice-President of Kenya
The Vice-President of Kenya is the second-highest executive official in the Kenyan government.-List of Vice-Presidents of Kenya:*Jaramogi Oginga Odinga *Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi *Daniel arap Moi...
, and kept the Finance portfolio until Moi changed his ministerial portfolio from Finance to Home Affairs in 1982. When Kibaki was the minister of Finance Kenya enjoyed a period of relative prosperity, fueled by a commodities boom, especially coffee, with remarkable fiscal discipline and sound monetary policies.
Kibaki fell out of favour with President Moi in 1988, and was dropped as Vice President and moved to the Ministry of Health. He seemingly took the demotion in his stride without much ado.
Kibaki's political style during these years was described as gentlemanly and non confrontational. This mild style also exposed him to criticism that he was a spineless, or even cowardly, politician who never took a stand- "He never saw a fence he didn't sit on",so went the joke. He also,as the political circumstances of the time dictated, projected himself as a loyal stalwart of the then ruling single party, KANU.In the months before multiparty politics were introduced in 1992, he infamously declared that agitating for multi party democracy and trying to dislodge KANU from power was like "trying to cut down a fig tree with a razor blade".
It was therefore with great surprise that the country received the news of Kibaki's resignation from government and leaving KANU on Christmas Day in December 1991, only days after the repeal of Section 2A of the Constitution, which restored the multi-party system
Multi-party system
A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition, e.g.The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in the United Kingdom formed in 2010. The effective number of parties in a multi-party system is normally...
of government. Soon after his resignation,Kibaki founded the Democratic Party (DP)
Democratic Party (Kenya)
The Democratic Party is a conservative political party in Kenya.At the last legislative elections, 27 December 2002, the party was a partner in the National Rainbow Coalition, that won 56.1% of the popular vote and 125 out of 210 elected seats. The party itself took 36 of these seats...
. and entered the presidential race in the up coming multi party elections of 1992. He was criticised as a "johnny come lately" opportunist who, unlike his two main opposition presidential election opponents in that year, Kenneth Matiba
Kenneth Matiba
Kenneth Matiba is a Kenyan politician. He was the second-place candidate in the 1992 presidential election.Matiba became a senior civil servant at a young age of 31...
and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was taking advantage of multipartysm despite not having fought for it .
Kibaki came third in the subsequent presidential elections of 1992, when the divided opposition lost to president Moi and KANU despite having received more than two thirds of the vote. He then came second to Moi in the 1997 elections, when again, Moi beat a divided opposition to retain the presidency. In January 1998, Kibaki became the leader of the official opposition with the Democratic Party being the official opposition party in Parliament.
2002 Elections
In preparation for the 2002 elections, Kibaki's Democratic Party affiliated with several other opposition parties to form National Alliance Party of KenyaNational Alliance Party of Kenya
The National Alliance Party of Kenya is a political party in Kenya. The National Alliance Party of Kenya was formed on July 3, 2000 when people from varying background decided to form an alliance of democratic forces to work for the social, economic and political unity and welfare of Kenyan...
(NAK). A group of disappointed KANU presidential aspirants then quit KANU in protest after being overlooked by outgoing President Moi when Moi had founding Father Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyattapron.] served as the first Prime Minister and President of Kenya. He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation....
's son, Uhuru Kenyatta
Uhuru Kenyatta
Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance and MP for Gatundu South Constituency. He is the Chairman of Kenya African National Union , the former ruling party, which is currently part of the Party of National Unity...
, nominated to be the KANU presidential candidate, and hurriedly formed the Liberal Democratic Party
Liberal Democratic Party (Kenya)
The Liberal Democratic Party was a political party in Kenya.In the general election held on 27 December 2002, the party was a partner in the National Rainbow Coalition, which won 56.1 % of the popular vote and 125 out of 212 elected seats. The party itself took 59 of these seats...
(LDP). NAK later combined with the LDP,to form the National Rainbow Coalition
National Rainbow Coalition
The National Rainbow Coalition was a coalition of Kenyan political parties in power from 2002 and 2005 when it fell apart in a controversy between its wings about a constitutional referendum.-Formation:...
(NARC). On 14 October 2002, at a large opposition rally in Uhuru
Uhuru
Uhuru may refer to:, a Lake Victoria ferry in East Africa*Uhuru , campaigns for and achievement of national independence in Africa especially in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania*Uhuru Kenyatta , Kenyan politician...
Park, Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, Kibaki was nominated the NARC opposition alliance presidential candidate after Raila Odinga made the famous declaration, Kibaki Tosha!
On 3 December 2002, Kibaki was injured in a road accident while on his way back to Nairobi from a campaign meeting at Machakos junction 40 km From Nairobi. He was subsequently hospitalized in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, then London, after sustaining fracture injuries in the accident. He still walks rather awkwardly as a result of those injuries.The rest of his presidential campaign was thus conducted by his NARC colleagues in his absence, led by Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
who campaigned tirelessly for Kibaki after stating that"The captain has been injured in the field... but the rest of the team shall continue."
On 27 December 2002, Kibaki and NARC won a landslide victory over KANU, with Kibaki getting 62% of the votes in the presidential elections, against only 31% for the KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta
Uhuru Kenyatta
Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance and MP for Gatundu South Constituency. He is the Chairman of Kenya African National Union , the former ruling party, which is currently part of the Party of National Unity...
.
2002 Swearing In, End of KANU Rule Moi Retirement
On 29 December 2002, still nursing injuries from the motor vehicle accident and in a wheel chair, Mwai Kibaki was sworn-in as the third President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of KenyaKenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
in a boisterous, chaotic and jubilant ceremony held at the open grounds of Uhuru Park, Nairobi.. "I am inheriting a country which has been badly ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude," he stated at his swearing-in, as quoted by Andrew England of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. With Moi looking on, Kibaki reiterated his pledge to end government corruption. "The era of anything goes is now gone forever," he was quoted by Marc Lacey of the New York Times as having said. "Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals".
Thus ended four decades of KANU rule, KANU having hitherto ruled Kenya since independence. President Daniel Arap Moi, who had been Kenya's second president for 24 years since 1978, also began his retirement.
2003–2005: Reviving The Economy and Ill Health
President Kibaki's first term was about reviving and turning round the Kenyan economy after years of economic mis-management during the MoiMoi
- Language :* The French language word for "me" , used idiomatically and informally by English speakers to facetiously indicate mock innocence or humility...
years- a feat that was largely attained in the face of great challenges,including the President's ill health at the time, and political tension culminating in the break-up of the NARC coalition.The introduction of free primary education, was a great milestone.
In late January 2003, it was announced that the President had been admitted to Nairobi Hospital to have a blood clot – the after-effect of his car accident – removed from his leg. He came out of hospital and addressed the public outside the hospital on TV in a visibly incoherent manner,and speculation since then is that he had suffered a stroke, his second, the first being said to have occurred sometimes in the 70s. His subsequent ill health greatly diminished his performance during his first term and the affairs of government during that time are said to have been largely run by a group of loyal aides, both in and out of government, most of whom were his Kikuyu and Meru buddies. Kibaki did not look good, for instance, when he appeared live on TV on 25 September 2003 to appoint Moody Awori
Moody Awori
Arthur Moody Awori , known as "Uncle Moody", was the 9th Vice President of Kenya from 25 September 2003 to 9 January 2008.-Politics:Awori was born in Butere. He went to Mangu High School in 1935, and later Kakamega High School...
Vice President after the death in office of Vice President, Michael Wamalwa Kijana
Michael Wamalwa Kijana
Michael Wamalwa Kijana was a Kenyan politician and, at the time of his death, Kenya's Vice-President.-Early life:...
.
In November 2004, in an ABC Prime Time interview with Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...
, former US President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
identified Kibaki as the one living person he would most like to meet "because of the Kenyan government's decision to abolish school fees for primary education". Clinton added that, by providing free and compulsory primary education, what Kibaki had done would affect more lives than any president had done or would ever do by the end of the year. The free education programme saw nearly 1.7 million more pupils enroll in school by the end of that year. Clinton's wish was granted when he visited Kenya in the summer of 2005 and finally met president Kibaki on 22 July.
2005-2007-Constitutional Referendum and the NARC Fallout
The 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum was held on 21 November 2005.The main issue of contention in the Constitution review process was how much power should be vested in the Kenyan Presidency. In previous drafts, those who feared a concentration of power in the president added provisions for European-style power-sharing between a ceremonial President elected via universal suffrage and an executive Prime Minister elected by Parliament. The draft presented by the Attorney General Amos Wako for the referendum retained sweeping powers for the Presidency.
Though supported by Kibaki, some members of his own cabinet, mainly from the LDP wing led by Raila Odinga, and the main opposition party KANU, mobilised a powerful NO campaign that resulted in a majority of 58% Kenyan voters rejecting the draft.
As a consequence of,and immediately after, the referendum loss,on 23 November 2005,Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet in the middle of his administration's term, the aim being to purge all Raila allied ministers from the cabinet. About his decision Kibaki said, “Following the results of the Referendum, it has become necessary for me, as the President of the Republic, to re-organise my Government to make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya". The only members of the cabinet office to be spared a midterm exit were the Vice President and Minister of Home Affairs, Moody Awori
Moody Awori
Arthur Moody Awori , known as "Uncle Moody", was the 9th Vice President of Kenya from 25 September 2003 to 9 January 2008.-Politics:Awori was born in Butere. He went to Mangu High School in 1935, and later Kakamega High School...
, and the Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
whose position is constitutionally protected. A new cabinet of Kibaki loyalists, including MPs from the opposition, termed the Government of National Unity (GNU), was thereafter appointed, but some MPs who were offered ministerial positions declined to take up posts.
A recent report by a Kenyan Commission of Inquiry, the Waki Commission
Waki Commission
The Waki Commission, officially The Commission of Inquiry on Post Election Violence , was an international commission of inquiry established by the Government of Kenya in February 2008 to investigate the clashes in Kenya following the disputed Kenyan presidential election of 2007.- Background : The...
, contextualizes the issues and events on page 30 as follows:-
The attempt to reduce the personal power [of the Presidency] that had been accumulated by former President Moi initially was the reason opposition forces sought to introduce the post of Prime Minister. This culminated in an informal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) before the 2002 election between the then opposition coalition under which the coalition agreed to introduce the post of Prime Minister after the election. Once elected, however, President Kibaki reneged on the MoU. Discussions continued concerning constitutional change and the devolution of power. The Kibaki Government then came up with a draft Constitution put forward by Attorney General, Amos Wako watering down some of the provisions in the draft agreed to during the “Bomas” discussions. The Wako draft was put to the public at a referendum in 2005, where voters rejected it. [...]
As soon as the MoU was scuttled, a group led by Raila Odinga left the NARC coalition Government. President’s Kibaki Government was perceived as being unwilling to abide by its pre-election agreement with its partners and as retreating into an ethnic enclave. This was criticized by the public and was seen as an attempt by the so-called “Mount Kenya Mafia” to keep power to itself rather than share it. Even though the MoU was not a legal agreement, the Kibaki Government’s turning away from it and removing from government the group of Ministers associated to Odinga had the effect of increasing the polarization of politics along ethnic lines. Even though the 2005 referendum was peaceful and the results were accepted rather than contested, the parameters were nevertheless drawn. With the ethnic political fault lines clearly drawn after 2005, and the need to win the presidency seen as paramount, tensions began to mount.
2007 Elections
On 26 January 2007, President Kibaki declared his intention of running for re-election in the 2007 presidential electionKenyan presidential election, 2007
A presidential election was held as part of the Kenyan general election on December 27, 2007; parliamentary elections were held on the same date. Incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in on December 30, despite opposition leader Raila Odinga's claims of victory...
. On 16 September 2007, Kibaki announced that he would stand as the candidate of a new alliance incorporating all the parties who supported his re-election, called the Party of National Unity
Party of National Unity (Kenya)
Party of National Unity was founded as a political coalition of parties in Kenya. On September 16, 2007, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announced the party formation and said that he would run as its presidential candidate in the December 2007 Kenyan elections...
. The parties in his alliance included the much diminished former ruling KANU
Kenya African National Union
The Kenya African National Union, better known as KANU is a political party which ruled Kenya for nearly 40 years after its independence from British colonial rule in 1963, until its electoral loss at the end of 2002...
. DP
Democratic Party (Kenya)
The Democratic Party is a conservative political party in Kenya.At the last legislative elections, 27 December 2002, the party was a partner in the National Rainbow Coalition, that won 56.1% of the popular vote and 125 out of 210 elected seats. The party itself took 36 of these seats...
, Narc-Kenya
Narc-Kenya
The National Rainbow Coalition–Kenya is a political party in Kenya. The party was formed after the defeat of the Government sponsored Draft constitution. It was formed by National Rainbow Coalition members loyal to the government...
, Ford-Kenya, Ford People
Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-People
The Forum for the Restoration of Democracy–People is a political party in Kenya.At the 2002 general election, the party won 14 out of 210 elected seats.At the 2002 presidential elections, the party supported Simeon Nyachae, who came third with 5.9%....
, and Shirikisho.
Kibaki's main opponent, Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
, had used the referendum victory to launch the ODM
Orange Democratic Movement
Orange Democratic Movement refers to a political party in Kenya, which is the successor of a former grassroots people's movement which was formed in the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum. The erstwhile single party which separated in August 2007 into two...
, which nominated him as its presidential Candidate for the 2007 elections.
On 30 September 2007, a robust and much healthier President Kibaki launched his presidential campaign at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi.
Kalonzo Musyoka
Kalonzo Musyoka
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Vice President of Kenya. Musyoka served in the government under President Daniel arap Moi and was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1993 until 1998; subsequently, under President Mwai Kibaki, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs...
then broke away from Raila's ODM
Orange Democratic Movement
Orange Democratic Movement refers to a political party in Kenya, which is the successor of a former grassroots people's movement which was formed in the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum. The erstwhile single party which separated in August 2007 into two...
to mount his own fringe bid for the presidency,thus narrowing down the contest between the main candidates, Kibaki, the incumbent, and Odinga. Opinion polls up to election day showed Kibaki behind Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
nationally, but closing. On regional analysis, the polls showed him behind Raila in all regions of the country except Central Province, Embu and Meru,where he was projected to take most of the votes, and behind Kalonzo Musyoka in Kalonzo's native Ukambani. It was thus projected to be a close election between Kibaki and Raila.
After intense, expensive and vigorous campaigns, the election was held on 27 December 2007, and went on peacefully and orderly.
2007 Elections:Disputed Win
Three days later, after a protracted count which saw presidential results in Kibaki's Central Kenya come in last, allegedly inflated,in a cloud of suspicion and rising tensions, amid vehement protests by Raila's ODMOrange Democratic Movement
Orange Democratic Movement refers to a political party in Kenya, which is the successor of a former grassroots people's movement which was formed in the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum. The erstwhile single party which separated in August 2007 into two...
,overnight re-tallying of results and chaotic scenes, all beamed live on TV, at the national tallying center at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
,riot police eventually sealed off the tallying Center ahead of the result announcement, evicted party agents, observers and the media, and moved the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu,to another room where Kivuitu went on to declare Kibaki the winner by 4,584,721 votes to Odinga's 4,352,993, placing Kibaki ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes in the hotly contested election with Kalonzo Musyoka
Kalonzo Musyoka
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Vice President of Kenya. Musyoka served in the government under President Daniel arap Moi and was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1993 until 1998; subsequently, under President Mwai Kibaki, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs...
a distant third.
One hour later, in a hastily convened dusk ceremony, Kibaki was furtively sworn in at the grounds of State House Nairobi for his second term, defiantly calling for the "verdict of the people" to be respected and for "healing and reconciliation" to begin.
Immediately the results were announced, Odinga bitterly accused Kibaki of electoral fraud. Odinga's allegations scored with his supporters, and seemed meritorious since the results had defied pre-election polls and expectations and election day exit polls. Furthermore,Odinga, who had run an anti–Kikuyu campaign, had won the votes of most of the other Kenyan tribes and regions, with Kibaki's victory being attained only with the near exclusive support of the populous Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities-who had turned up to vote for Kibaki in large numbers after feeling,in reaction to the Odinga campaign, and with the covert encouragement of the Kibaki campaign, increasingly besieged and threatened by the pro-Odinga tribes. Moreover, ODM had won the most parliamentary and local authority seats by a wide margin. A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair. The European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, cited one constituency where his monitors saw official results for Kibaki that were 25,000 votes lower than the figure subsequently announced by the Electoral Commission."Because of this and other observed irregularities, doubt remains as to the accuracy of the result of the presidential election as announced today," he said.
It was a low point in Kibaki's political career, during which he also showed a hitherto unknown harder side of him. The media captured the events and reactions at the time thus:"Previously regarded as a gentlemanly leader with a passion for golf, Kibaki has revealed a steely side. ...With a reputation as a mild-mannered, old-school gentleman,... Kibaki, 76, showed a steely core by swearing himself in within an hour of being pronounced victor in an election denounced as fraudulent by opposition challenger Raila Odinga and questioned by international and Kenyan observers.Odinga's supporters said he would be declared president at a rival ceremony on Monday, but police banned the event [and hundreds of riot police sealed off the proposed venue, Uhuru Park for several days]."This is the saddest day in the history of democracy in this country. It is a coup d'etat," said Koki Muli, head of respected local watchdog, the Institute of Education in Democracy. " In truth,the election was more of a draw, so close that the official inquiry of the election concluded it was impossible to conclusively establish who between Kibaki and Raila won.
- [When the election was eventually investigated by the Independent Review Commission (IREC) on the 2007 Elections chaired by Justice Johann KrieglerJohann KrieglerJohann Christiaan Kriegler is a former Constitutional Court and Appeal Court judge from South Africa.-Early life:Born in Pretoria, he matriculated at King Edward Vll School in Johannesburg in 1949. He then attended the South African Military Academy for two years. He studied law at the University...
, it was found that there were too many electoral malpractices from several regions perpetrated by all the contesting parties to conclusively establish which candidate won the December 2007 Presidential elections. Such malpractices included widespread bribery, vote buying, intimidation and ballot stuffingBallot stuffingBallot stuffing is the illegal act of one person submitting multiple ballots during a vote in which only one ballot per person is permitted. The name originates from the earliest days of this practice in which people literally did stuff more than one ballot in a ballot box at the same time...
by both sides, as well as incompetence from the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK)(which was shortly thereafter disbanded by Parliament).]
Post 2007 Elections Violence
"It's not that we don't like Kikuyus – it's because they think they have a right to rule this country forever, even if it means stealing votes. "
Opposition supporters saw the result as a plot by Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest, to keep power by any means.Feeling cheated and extremely bitter, and also fueled by other long standing perceived grievances, the tribes that lost the election could not contemplate five years without political power and anti-Kikuyu sentiment swelled. Thus began the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis
2007–2008 Kenyan crisis
The 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis refers to a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis that erupted in Kenya after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election held on December 27, 2007. Supporters of Kibaki's opponent, Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic...
, as violence broke out in several places in the country, started by the ODM supporters protesting the "stealing" of their "victory", and subsequently escalating as the targeted Kikuyus retaliated. As unrest spread, television and radio stations were instructed to stop all live broadcasts.
There was a major breakdown of law an order in several cities and regions, and the situation threatened to escalate into a cataclysmic disintegration of the country as whole areas began to be ethnically cleansed amidst threats of regions seceding from the country and leaving central Kenya "an Island like Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
". There was also widespread theft,vandalism, looting and destruction of property, and a significant number of atrocities,killings and sexual violence were reported. A subsequent United Nations report stated that more than 1,200 Kenyans were reported killed, thousands more injured, over 300,000 people displaced and around 42,000 houses,farms and many businesses,looted or destroyed.
The violence continued for more than two months, as Kibaki ruled with "half" a cabinet he had appointed, with Odinga and ODM refusing to recognize him as president.
National Accord and Grand Coalition Government
The Country was only saved by the mediation of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi AnnanKofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
with a Panel of “Eminent African Personalities” backed by the African Union
African Union
The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002, the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity...
, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Following the mediation, a deal, called the national accord, was signed in February 2008 between Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
and Kibaki,now referred to as the "two Principals". The accord, later passed by the Kenyan Parliament as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008
National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008
The National Accord and Reconciliation Act of 2008 is an act of the National Assembly of Kenya that temporarily re-established the offices of Prime Minister of Kenya, along with the creation of two deputy prime ministers...
provided inter alia for power-sharing, with Kibaki remaining President and Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
taking a newly re-created post of Prime Minister.
On 17 April 2008, Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
was sworn in as Prime Minister, along with a power-sharing Cabinet, with 42 ministers and 50 assistant ministers, Kenya's largest ever. The cabinet is fifty percent Kibaki appointed ministers and fifty percent Raila appointed ministers, and is in reality a carefully balanced ethnic coalition
Coalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
. The arrangement, which also includes Kalonzo Musyoka
Kalonzo Musyoka
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Vice President of Kenya. Musyoka served in the government under President Daniel arap Moi and was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1993 until 1998; subsequently, under President Mwai Kibaki, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs...
as Vice President, is known as the "Grand Coalition Government".
Highpoints
President Kibaki, the economist whose term as Finance minister in the 1970s is widely celebrated as outstanding, has done much to repair the damage to the country’s economy during the 24-year reign of his predecessor, President Moi. The country, compared to the Moi years, is much better managed, and has by far more competent personnel, and is already much transformed.The improved management of the economy during the Kibaki presidency has seen continued Kenya GDP growth from a low 0.6% (real −1.6%) in 2002 to 3% in 2003, 4.9% in 2004, 5.8% in 2005, 6% in 2006 and 7% 2007, a very significant recovery from the preceding near total economic collapse and decay .
The President has also overseen the coming into being of the Vision 2030
Kenya Vision 2030
Kenya Vision 2030 is the country’s development blueprint covering the period 2008 to 2030. It's objective is to help transform Kenya into a, “middle-income country providing a high quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030”...
, a development plan aimed at raising GDP growth to 10% annually and transforming Kenya into a middle income country, which he unveiled on 30 October 2006.
Many sectors of the economy have recovered from total collapse pre-2003. Numerous state corporations that had collapsed during the Moi years have been revived and are performing profitably. The telecommunications sector is booming. Rebuilding, modernization and expansion of infrastructure has been going on in earnest, with several ambitious infrastructural and other projects, which would have been seen as unattainable pipe dreams during the bland and largely stagnant Moi years, planned or ongoing. The country's cities and towns are also being positively renewed and transformed.
Development is also ongoing in all areas of the country including Kenya's hitherto neglected and thus largely undeveloped semi-arid or arid north. Further, it was during the Kibaki presidency that the Constituency Development Fund, CDF, was introduced in 2003. The fund was designed to support constituency-level, grass-root development projects. It was aimed to achieve equitable distribution of development resources across regions and to control imbalances in regional development brought about by partisan politics. It targeted all constituency-level development projects, particularly those aiming to combat poverty at the grassroots. The CDF program has facilitated the putting up of new water, health and education facilities in all parts of the country including remote areas that were usually overlooked during funds allocation in national budgets.
The president has also overseen a reduction of Kenya's dependence on aid by western donors(which still remains significant though),with the country being increasingly funded by internally generated resources,tax revenue collection having grown tremendously during his term, and also by increasing investment,grants and loans by non-western countries, mainly Japan, People's Republic of China and the Middle East, and to a lessor extent investment by South African,Libyan and Nigerian corporations, and even Iran.
President Kibaki's style is that of a competent technocrat, as opposed to the populist buffoonery, or strongman dictatorship, so common in Africa. He,unlike his predecessors,has not tried to establish a personality cult. He has not had his portrait on every unit of Kenya's currency, neither has he had all manner of streets, places and institutions named after him. He has not had state sanctioned praise songs composed in his honour, does not seek to dominate and lead all news bulletins with reports of his presidential activities, and does not engage in the populist sloganeering of his predecessors.
Kenya is also much more democratic and freer in the Kibaki era than it was during the Kenyatta and Moi eras.
When he came to power in 2003, President Kibaki rolled out free learning both in primary and later in secondary schools. Enrolment in primary schools has climbed from six million in 2002 to 9.3 million in 2010, while the subsidised secondary education has helped push enrolment from 882,000 in 2003 to 1.7 million in 2010.
President Kibaki is the first leader in the East Africa and may be in Africa to bring into place a new constitution, that deprives the presidency off powers and not hang around in power like most African leaders.
Kibaki is a laid back type of a leader, who shows no desire in publicity, thus giving his political opponents a benefit of describing him. He will be remembered much for the free education, new and high profile constitution, media freedom, better economy and infrastructural development. For those who look for minor negatives, they will find much to discredit president Kibaki.
Shortcomings
The shortcomings of the Kibaki presidency include the president's not so stellar performance in the areas of political reform; constitutional reform;containment of Corruption in KenyaCorruption in Kenya
Political corruption in the post-colonial government of Kenya has had a history which spans the era of the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi's KANU governments to the Mwai Kibaki's NARC government. In the Corruption Perceptions Index 2005 Kenya is ranked 144th out of 159 countries for corruption...
;addressing the fundamental problem of the country's wealth, income and development inequalities; eliminating tribalism,and fostering national unity and cohesion;reduction of youth unemployment and crime; and facilitating generational change- as elaborated below. Tribalism and corruption still remain major tools of acquiring and maintaining political power in Kenya. As a result,all the good work the president has done remains at risk of being all undone, as it was to a significant extent by the post- 2007 election violence, and Kenya remains at risk of becoming a failed state.
The President has been criticized for poor political management of the country, and apparent failure to unite, and amply manage the competing interests of, Kenya's various tribes. As a result, the country remains at the risk of tearing apart, and the President and his allies need to do more to prevent the country's balkanization into ethnic enclaves especially after benefiting from tribalism during elections.
He has also been accused of ruling with a small group of his elderly peers,mainly from the educated side of the Kikuyu elite that emerged in the Kenyatta years,usually referred to as the "Kitchen Cabinet" or the "Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro. The highest peaks of the mountain are Batian , Nelion and Point Lenana . Mount Kenya is located in central Kenya, just south of the equator, around north-northeast of the capital Nairobi...
Mafia". There is therefore the perception that his is a Kikuyu presidency . This perception was reinforced when the President was seen to have trashed the pre- 2002 election Memorandum of Understanding with the Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
led Liberal Democratic Party, and was further reinforced by his disputed 2007 election victory over the Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
led ODM Party being achieved nearly exclusively with the votes of the populous Mt. Kenya Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities.
The Commission of Inquiry Into Post Election Violence [CIPEV]put it thus :-
The post election violence [in early 2008]therefore is, in part, a consequence of the failure of President Kibaki and his first Government to exert political control over the country or to maintain sufficient legitimacy as would have allowed a civilized contest with him at the polls to be possible. Kibaki’s regime failed to unite the country, and allowed feelings of marginalization to fester into what became the post election violence. He and his then Government were complacent in the support they considered they would receive in any election from the majority Kikuyu community and failed to heed the views of the legitimate leaders of other communities.”
The President, who was elected in 2002 on a reform platform, is also yet to deliver long clamored for fundamental reforms and a new constitution, instead maintaining the status quo ante which he helped to establish and was a major part of, and thus keeping the overwhelming presidential powers granted by Kenya's current constitution. It does also seem that his template is the presidency of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyattapron.] served as the first Prime Minister and President of Kenya. He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation....
, and that a major aim of his presidency is the preservation of the elite that emerged during the Kenyatta years, which he is part of, along with the system that made that elite and so much preserves and favours it. The general feeling of disappointed Kenyans, so optimistic after the 2002 “revolution” is amply captured by the following quote from T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom “... when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew.”
Though the President has never personally been accused of corruption, and has managed to virtually end the grabbing of public land rampant in the Moi and Kenyatta eras, he is yet to adequately contain Kenya's endemic corruption. Elected on an anti-corruption platform, one of President Kibaki's first acts a president was to appoint John Githongo
John Githongo
John Githongo is a former Kenyan journalist who investigated bribery and fraud in his home country and later, under the presidency of Mwai Kibaki, took on an official governmental position to fight corruption. In 2005 he left that position, later accusing top ministers of large-scale fraud...
, a prominent anti-corruption activist, as Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics, reporting directly to him. Three years later, a frustrated Githongo resigned this position, citing the impossibility of his position in a situation of such widespread and high level corruption, and went into exile in London. In the Anglo-Leasing scandal
Anglo-Leasing scandal
The Anglo Leasing Scandal, also known as Anglo-fleecing, is the popular name for a corruption scandal in Kenya.-Origins:The scandal is alleged to have started when the Kenyan government wanted to replace its passport printing system, in the year 1997, but came to light after revelation by a...
, which Githongo played a major role in uncovering, senior politicians including several Ministers and the Vice President Moody Awori
Moody Awori
Arthur Moody Awori , known as "Uncle Moody", was the 9th Vice President of Kenya from 25 September 2003 to 9 January 2008.-Politics:Awori was born in Butere. He went to Mangu High School in 1935, and later Kakamega High School...
were alleged to be closely involved. Githongo has also highlighted the unwillingness of President Kibaki to address these allegations, suggesting that Kibaki himself is therefore personally implicated. To date despite the efforts of John Githongo and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) through numerous investigations and prosecution of cases, no high-profile figures have been convicted in court on corruption charges. On 15 November 2006 Kiraitu Murungi
Kiraitu Murungi
-Education:Kiraitu Murungi was born on 1 January 1952 in Kionyo village, Abogeta division of Meru District in Central Kenya. He attended Chuka High School before proceeding to Alliance High School. Murungi graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in Nairobi University in 1977 and attained a Master of Law...
, who had "stepped aside"to allow for independent investigations of corruption allegations in the Anglo-Leasing scandal
Anglo-Leasing scandal
The Anglo Leasing Scandal, also known as Anglo-fleecing, is the popular name for a corruption scandal in Kenya.-Origins:The scandal is alleged to have started when the Kenyan government wanted to replace its passport printing system, in the year 1997, but came to light after revelation by a...
, was reappointed as Energy Minister, and George Saitoti
George Saitoti
Prof. George Kinuthia Saitoti is a Kenyan politician and mathematician who was Vice President of Kenya from 1989 to 1997 and again from 1999 to 2002. He has been Minister for Internal Security since 2008 and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010.-Biography and education:George Saitoti is...
, who had been previously accused in connection with the Goldenberg scandal
Goldenberg scandal
The Goldenberg scandal was a political scandal where the Kenyan government was found to have subsidised exports of gold far beyond standard arrangements during the 1990s, by paying the company Goldenberg International 35% more than their foreign currency earnings...
, was reinstated as Education Minister.Both ministers were said to have been exonerated in the resultant investigations. Author MICHELA WRONG, in her book on Githogo, describes the situation thus:-
Whether expressed in the petty bribes the average Kenyan had to pay each week to fat-bellied policemen and local councillors, the jobs for the boys doled out by civil servants and politicians on strictly tribal lines, or the massive scams perpetrated by the country’s ruling elite, sleaze had become endemic. ‘Eating’, as Kenyans dubbed the gorging on state resources by the well-connected, had crippled the nation. In the corruption indices drawn up by the anti-graft organisation Transparency International, Kenya routinely trail[s] near the bottom ..., viewed as only slightly less sleazy than NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
or PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
..."
The President's style of a seemingly aloof withdrawn technocrat or intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
makes him come across as a seemingly snobbish upper class urbanite who is out of touch with the ordinary Kenyan. The President's aloof "delegation style" also makes his governments,especially at cabinet level, seem dysfunctional and chaotic.
Another major problem that the President is only just beginning to adequately address youth unemployment, and soaring crime mainly perpetrated by frustrated youth on the wrong side of the wide poor-rich divide in the country.
The president has from time to time addressed the above issues, as he did for instance, in his Madaraka Day speech delivered to the nation on 1 June 2009.
Personal life
In 2004 the media reported that Kibaki has a second spouse allegedly married under customary law, Mary Wambui
Mary Wambui
Mary Wambui is a Kenyan businesswoman and the second wife of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. The Wambui family claim that Mwai married Mary in 1972 under Kikuyu customary law and have a daughter, Wangui Mwai....
, and a daughter, Wangui Mwai
Wangui Mwai
Winnie Wangui Mwai is the daughter of the current President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, and Narc Activist Mary Wambui. She is employed at the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Kenya. Although Mwai she is the daughter of Kibaki's second wife, she and her mother are given reserved positions at national...
. After the news broke, the State House released an unsigned statement that Kibaki's only immediate family is his wife, Lucy and their four children. The Washington Post termed the entire scandal as a "new Kenyan soap opera". In 2009, Kibaki, accompanied by a furious Lucy Kibaki, held a press conference to re-state to the world that he only has one wife.
President Kibaki is known to be a keen golfer and is one of the longtime members of the Muthaiga Golf Club.
He is a practicing Christian and belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
External links
- Mwai Kibaki official website
- Profile of His Excellency Hon. Mwai Kibaki
- Profile of President Mwai Kibaki
- Review of Mwai Kibaki: Economist for Kenya by Ng'ang'a Mbugua
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