NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 22 – Kenyans have described him as the best President the country has ever had, not only after his demise, but even before.
Every time his name would pop up on social media platforms, Kenyans would pour praises on him and reminisce on his tenure as Kenya’s third president.
This is President Mwai Kibaki.
His efforts to steer Kenya’s economic prosperity higher, introduction of free primary education and infrastructural development won the hearts of many Kenyans.
He was a comical president whose sense of humor was admired by many.
The Former President was born on November 15, 1931 in Gatuyaini village, Othaya, Nyeri County.
He attended Makerere University in 1955 in Uganda and the London School of Economics in 1959.
He then worked as a teacher before becoming active in the Kenyan struggle for independence from Great Britain.
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After Kenya became independent in 1963, he won a seat in the National Assembly as a member of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party.
Kibaki was later appointed as a minister of finance in 1969 and was later promoted to vice president’s post which he served between 1982 to 1988.
During his tenure as a deputy president, Kibaki found himself at loggerheads with President Daniel Arap Moi who then headed KANU.
In 1991, Kibaki resigned his membership in KANU to form the Democratic Party and served as an opposition Member of Parliament from 1992 to 2002.
He unsuccessfully vied for the presidency in 1992 and 1997 and ended up serving as the Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament from 1998 to 2002.
In the 2002 presidential election Kibaki tried for the third time his luck for the top seat on a National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) which he helped create. The multiparty alliance nominated him as the presidential candidate to run against President Moi’s preferred successor the current President Uhuru Kenyatta.
It is at that time that NARC routed the ruling KANU at the parliamentary elections and at the presidential levels which had dominated Kenya since the country’s independence.
As president, Kibaki pledged to eliminate the government corruption that had ruined the country’s economy and had resulted in the withdrawal of foreign aid.
Although he established anticorruption courts, his attempts to pass anticorruption bills were largely unsuccessful. In 2003 legislators voted themselves large raises, which they said would discourage bribe taking.
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In preparation for the December 2007 elections, Kibaki formed a new coalition The Party of National Union (PNU), which, surprisingly, included KANU. Several candidates stood in the presidential election, which was one of the closest in Kenya’s history and boasted a record-high voter turnout.
After a delay in the release of the final election results, Kibaki was declared the winner, narrowly defeating Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Odinga immediately disputed the outcome, and international observers questioned the validity of the final results. Widespread protests ensued throughout the country and degenerated into horrific acts of violence involving some of Kenya’s many ethnic groups.
On February 28, 2008, Kibaki and Odinga signed a power-sharing plan brokered by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania and chairman of the African Union. The plan called for the formation of a Coalition Government between PNU and ODM and the creation of several new positions, with Kibaki to remain president and Odinga to hold the then newly created post of Prime Minister.
Despite the agreement, however, conflict persisted over the distribution of posts. After several the coalition, however, was often fraught with tension.
A new constitution finally materialized during Kibaki’s second term. Designed to address the sources of ethnic and political tensions that had fueled the violence that followed the December 2007 election, the new constitution featured a decentralization of power and was supported by both Kibaki and Odinga. It was approved by voters in a referendum, and Kibaki signed it into law on August 27, 2010.
Barred by the Constitution from holding a third term as president, Kibaki stepped down at the end of his term in April 2013. He was succeeded by now President Uhuru Kenyatta, who had defeated Odinga in the 2013 Presidential polls.
