Meet Kenya's new president
2002-12-29 14:53
Nairobi - Kenya's new president loves golf, enjoys beer, has a degree from the London School of Economics and has been a politician for four decades.
Mwai Kibaki (71) is the first man to break the Kenya African National Union's (Kanu) hold on power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1963. Yet he was also instrumental in forming Kanu and was a party stalwart for 30 years.
Kibaki cruised to a massive victory in Friday's presidential election on his candidacy for the opposition National Rainbow Coalition, a new alliance between 11 parties which draw their support from different ethnic groups.
"He cannot afford to disappoint because he's coming in on a wave of enthusiasm and discontent," said David Makali, a columnist and director of Kenya's Media Institute.
Formerly an economics lecturer at Uganda's prestigious Makerere University, Kibaki returned to Kenya to become one of Kanu's founding fathers and a member of parliament at independence.
He spent 13 years as finance minister in the government of Jomo Kenyatta, whose son Uhuru was the Kanu presidential candidate and Kibaki's chief rival in the election. Legend has it that Kibaki suggested the name Uhuru - the Swahili word for freedom - to the elder Kenyatta.
After Kenyatta's death in 1978 and Daniel arap Moi's ascension to the presidency, Kibaki spent a decade as vice-president. He even dismissed the push for multi-party democracy in the late 1980s as a mere "razor blade" that could never cut down the tree that was Kanu.
"He has not been personally tainted with problems of corruption, but he was part of a very corrupt regime," said John Githongo, Kenya director of the Transparency International watchdog group.
When the ban on opposition parties was lifted in 1991, Kibaki formed the Democratic Party, ran as its presidential candidate in 1992 and 1997, but lost both times to the incumbent Moi.
He attracted little support outside his central Kenyan heartland and his Kikuyu ethnic group, gaining less than one-third of the vote.
What changed this time was the coalition behind him.
When Kenya's fractious opposition parties put away their differences and formed an alliance in September, Kibaki emerged as their compromise presidential candidate, helped by his status as elder statesman.
The Rainbow campaign portrayed him as an experienced manager and as the man to bring the change for which Kenyans thirsted, donwplaying his ties to the system.
An economic liberal, Kibaki is keen to attract foreign investment and to persuade the International Monetary Fund to take Kenya out of its bad books.
"He believes in stimulating growth, but he's going to have trouble finding where the money is going to come from," said Betty Maina, director of the Nairobi-based Institute of Economic Affairs.
Edward Ontita, a sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi, said Kibaki represents the conservative interests of big business and would bring little improvement to the lives of most Kenyans.
"He is far removed from the general population, he doesn't understand the problems of ordinary people in the streets," Ontita said.
Kibaki broke his arm and dislocated his ankle in a road accident while campaigning on December 3. He was flown to London for a week of treatment and after his return, did not campaign outside Nairobi until the day before the election.
On voting day, a crush of supporters and press surrounded Kibaki's motorcade as he arrived at his polling station. Election officials carried the ballot boxes to him and he voted from the back seat of his Mercedes. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA