Mwai Kibaki
Mwai Emilio Stanley Kibaki (born November 15, 1931 ) was the third President of Kenya from December 30, 2002 to April 9, 2013 . On December 30, 2007, he was declared the winner of the 2007 presidential election and sworn in again. In 2013, Uhuru Kenyatta succeeded him in this office.
Youth and Studies
Kibaki comes from the Kikuyu ethnic group and was born in Gatuyaini village, Othaya district, in the Nyeri district at the foot of Mount Kenya . He received his baptismal name Emilio Stanley from Italian missionaries who baptized him Roman Catholic . Kibaki, who hardly uses his baptismal names today, is a practicing Catholic.
Kibaki was the youngest son of the farming family of Kibaki Githinji and his wife Teresia Wanjiku. He attended the eight-year elementary school in Gatuyaini for two years , switched to the Karima Mission School for three years , and then completed his elementary education at the Mathari Boarding Primary School in 1946. From 1947 to 1950 he attended Mang'u High School, which he graduated as top of the class with the highest possible score.
He then studied - like a large part of the East African elite - at Makerere University in Kampala , British East Africa (now Uganda ), economics, history and politics. During his student days he was active as chairman of the Kenya Students' Association . In 1955 he graduated from the top of his class, which earned him a British scholarship to the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science . Here he earned a Bachelor (B.Sc.) in Public Finance.
Private life
After returning to Africa, Kibaki worked as a lecturer at Makerere, but soon after went into politics. Until her death in 2016 he was married to Lucy Kibaki , with whom he has four children, daughter Judy Wanjiku and sons Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai and Tony Githinji. Kibaki has another relationship with Mary Wambui, with whom he has a daughter. Mary Wambui lives in Nyeri and is active in the NARC . Today Kibaki is one of the major landowners in Kenya. At the end of the 1960s he first bought the Gingalily farm near Nakuru , then the Bahati farm and the Ruare ranch as well as farms in Igwamiti ( Laikipia District ) and in Rumuruti , north of Naivasha .
Kibaki's wife caused concern among AIDS initiatives in 2006 when she advised against the use of condoms among young people. Around 7% of the country's population is infected with the immunodeficiency disease.
politics
Since the 1960s, Kibaki was in the Unity Party of Kenya, the Kenya African National Union (KANU). Since the country's independence, i.e. since 1963, he has been a member of parliament and since then has held his constituency Makadara (formerly Donholm, then Bahati). Until President Jomo Kenyatta's death in 1978, he was finance minister in his cabinet, then vice-president under Daniel arap Moi until 1988.
CANOE
After Kibaki had given up his teaching activity in Makerere, he became General Secretary of the Kenya African National Union (KANU). For the 1963 election he was involved in drafting the new constitution. His unprecedented political career began with his election to parliament in 1963. In 1974 Time Magazine classified him as one of the 100 potential future leaders in the world.
Under Jomo Kenyatta :
- 1963: (Assistant) Minister of Finance; Chairman of the Economic Planning Commission
- 1966: Minister for Economic Affairs and Industry
- 1969: Minister of Finance
Under Daniel arap Moi :
- 1978: Vice President and Minister of Finance
- 1982: Vice President and Minister of the Interior
- 1988: Minister of Health (demoted after differences with President Moi)
DP
Immediately after the re-establishment of the multiparty system, Kibaki left KANU and in December 1991 founded the Democratic Party (DP), which for a short time became the strongest opposition force. He ran twice unsuccessfully against Moi for the presidency in 1992 and 1997. In 1992 he was third behind Kenneth Matiba and in 1997 second. This showed that a fragmented opposition to Moi or a candidate from KANU had no chance.
NARC
In preparation for the elections in 2002, Kibaki tried to unite the opposition and run with only one candidate from the experience of the last elections. Kibaki and his DP, other parties and the largest party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Luo Raila Odinga , formed a fragile coalition, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). The price that Odinga left the presidency to Kibaki was Kibaki's little concrete promise to appoint Odinga as a strong prime minister. This promise was not kept and is one of the reasons why there was a dispute over the new constitution (which did not provide for a prime minister) and this was rejected.
During the election campaign, Kibaki had a serious car accident, which many interpreted as a secret attack by the political opponent. Kibaki was treated in a London hospital. His health was in poor health for a long time.
From the democratic and non-violent elections of December 27, 2002, in which Moi did not run for constitutional reasons, Kibaki was the most outstanding candidate of the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) against Uhuru Kenyatta (KANU) with 62 to 31 percent Winners. That was 122 of the 210 seats for the NARC. The defeated Kenyatta immediately and fairly recognized the defeat.
Kenya's third president
Mwai Kibaki was sworn in as the third President of Kenya on December 30, 2002. His first cabinet was carefully balanced across the country's 40 or so ethnicities and NARC political parties. His leadership style is very different from the paternalistic behavior of Kenyatta or Moi's authoritarian style. He pursues a long leash policy, which sometimes leads him to be accused of not being tight or of letting everything go.
Even in the fight against corruption, he remains strongly in the background. It was not until the anti-corruption activities of State Secretary John Githongo , appointed by him in 2003 but apparently only half-heartedly, that names from the government team came to light and were in court.
On the other hand, Kibaki quickly implemented his election promise to offer primary education free of charge for all children. That brought 1.7 million more children into schools. However, the price for this is very high. The class size can increase to up to 100 children. In November 2004, ex-US President Bill Clinton named Kibaki (because of this landmark decision) the man he most wanted to see.
The referendum on 21 November 2005 on the new constitution Kibaki lost hands down. Several ministers in his government took part in the party alliance against the draft constitution he favored (“Wako draft”). The dispute focused heavily on the constitutionally planned strong position of the president.
On November 23, 2005, Kibaki dissolved the cabinet - apart from the Attorney General Amos Wako , who is constitutionally protected - and put parliament on leave because of the ministers who had been shaken by allegations of corruption . The dissolution of an entire cabinet was an extraordinary step, and in Kenya, which is used to constant postponements and dismissals in one cabinet, this step caused a surprise.
Two weeks later the new cabinet was appointed. The cast corresponded in part to that of the old cabinet and was partly renewed.
In March 2006 the parliament met again. It immediately dealt with an anti-corruption report submitted by its own parliamentary commission meeting under Uhuru Kenyatta .
On December 30, 2007, Kibaki was declared the winner of the 2007 presidential election by the Kenyan Electoral Commission and sworn in immediately. The decision was very controversial as Kibaki supposedly only had a lead of around 230,000 votes. After the opposition accused of electoral manipulation, demonstrations against Kibaki broke out, which were violently suppressed by the police. This gave Kibaki the nickname "Mubaki" in diplomatic circles, an allusion to the then head of state of Zimbabwe , Robert Mugabe .
After his competitor Raila Odinga gained a certain lead in the first projections after the election , suddenly there were no further results, but after two days enormous numbers of votes were registered for Kibaki, who was hastily declared the election winner and sworn in as president less than an hour later. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff stated in a statement as the head of 150 EU election observers: "The counting process is not credible, we have evidence of irregularities in various constituencies." Police troops out after violent protests against him have risen across the country; several hundred people were killed in the resulting civil war-like unrest.
At the mediation of the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Odinga and Kibaki began negotiations on a solution to the political crisis in Kenya. At the end of February 2008 an agreement was reached on the formation of a joint government, and on April 13, 2008 Raila Odinga was finally appointed Prime Minister of Kenya.
As a result of these conditions there was a failure of up to 70% of the currency earner tourism, for months there were hardly any tourists in Kenya's hotels.
In early August 2009, Kibaki converted the sentences of all 4,000 people sentenced to death in the country to life imprisonment. According to the President's Office, Kibaki's decision was largely motivated by the fact that the death row inmates are not allowed to work because of the law. The death penalty remains officially in place.
In 2013, Kibaki Uhuru Kenyatta followed as President of Kenya.
Individual evidence
- ^ The White House, Office of the Press Secretary: President Bush, Kenyan President Kibaki Discuss State Visit . on www.georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov (English)
- ^ Opposition politician Kibaki becomes new president , Der Spiegel , December 29, 2002
- ↑ “Controversial counting: Commission declares Kenya's president election winner - riot in Nairobi” , Spiegel Online , December 30, 2007
- ↑ Kenya waives the death penalty Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 4, 2009
- ↑ Uhuru Kenyatta wins Kenya presidential election by a hair . In: CBC News . ( cbc.ca [accessed August 15, 2017]).
Web links
Wikinews: Mwai Kibaki - on the news
Malcolm MacDonald (Governor General) | Jomo Kenyatta | Daniel arap Moi | Mwai Kibaki | Uhuru Kenyatta
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kibaki, Mwai |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kibaki, Mwai Emilio Stanley |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Kenyan politician and president |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 15, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gatuyaini, Othaya District, in the Nyeri District at the foot of Mount Kenya |