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NEWS & LETTERS,
January-February 2003
Our Life and Times
New Kenyan leader
Was it a second liberation, equivalent to the winning of
independence from Britain in the 1960s? However improbable, that was the
sentiment among many of the one million who turned out on Dec. 30 to celebrate
the end of 24 years of authoritarian rule under outgoing President Daniel arap
Moi. The people of Kenya voted for opposition leader Mwai
Kabaki and against Moi's handpicked successor--Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya's
first president, Jomo Kenyatta--by a landslide, 63% to 30%, this despite
manipulation and vote-buying by the Moi government. Kabaki, a veteran of the
independence struggle who broke with Moi in 1991, ran as the leader of the
National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). For the first time in decades, NARC united
key leaders from the country's two main ethnic groups, the Kikuyu and the Luo. The new government made an important gesture when it
immediately ended Moi's school fees, which had prevented 15% of the country's
children from attending primary school. NARC also promised to fight corruption
and to investigate past political murders. The leadership of NARC includes grassroots activists like Wangari Mathai, an environmental activist repeatedly jailed under Moi. However, the leadership contains considerably more politicians who defected from Moi's party only months ago. |
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