If widespread electoral violence and corruption did not tarnish his reputation, Mwai Kibaki, who died this week at the age of 90, would undoubtedly be remembered as the best president Kenya has ever had. His intellect and attitude made him head and shoulders above all his predecessors and successors. “Mwai Kibaki will forever be remembered as a gentleman of Kenyan politics, a brilliant debater and one who steered the country’s development,” praised current Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta his predecessor Friday.
His landslide election victory in 2002, after nearly a quarter of a century of autocratic rule under Daniel arap Moi, brought about a euphoria comparable only to independence in 1964. Kenyans celebrated lavishly. The central Uhuru Park in Nairobi turned out to be too small for his swearing-in. Young people climbed lampposts, everyone slapped each other on the shoulders and shook hands. Kenyans believed themselves to be the most hopeful people in the world, according to a poll, filled with only positive feelings.
Kenyans rubbed their eyes every day: for the first time in 24 years, newspapers were printing photos of cabinet meetings. These used to take place in secret, the population did not need to know anything about it. The newspaper columns were full of revelations about magistrates caught in the act taking bribes and angry citizens scolding bribe-billing traffic cops.
Kibaki had five hundred street children arrested, housed them in large halls and helped them kick the habit of glue sniffing
Kibaki started a project for the shelter of street children. He had five hundred street children and their families rounded up, housed them in large halls and helped them kick the habit of sniffing glue. This unhinged youth also had to go to school, according to the new government. Under Moi, the rascals were invited once a year for tea and biscuits in the presidential palace gardens and then sent back out onto the streets.
Kibaki introduced an entirely different style of government. He did not operate as a strict ruling chieftain, but let ministers do their thing. Moi behaved like an emperor to whom people would bow, Kibaki was a dull technocrat and economist who revived the economy by liberalizing the market. He brought in China as a development partner, admitted tens of thousands of cheap Chinese mopeds with which young people as moped taxi drivers created an entirely new transport sector, and signed the contract for the Chinese railway from the port city of Mombasa to Nairobi, the largest infrastructure project ever in Kenya.
Orchestrated Violence
The biggest dent in his reputation was the electoral violence of 2007 and 2008, which left Kenya teetering on the brink of collapse for months. Kibaki wanted a second term in office, opponent Raila Odinga wanted to prevent that. After several days of nail-biting, the vote counting was stopped and Kibaki was declared the victor in the middle of the night. The violence started a few minutes later.
Those acts of violence were not spontaneous. They turned out to be orchestrated by politicians, including supporters of Kibaki and his opponent Odinga. About 1,500 people were killed and more than half a million civilians displaced. Odinga is again a candidate in elections scheduled for August.
Read also Kikuyu’s are ‘rich’ scapegoats