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Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta

Date of Birth: 26 October 1961

Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is a Kenyan politician who served as the fourth president of Kenya from 2013 to 2022.[1][2] The son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president,[3] he previously served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2008 to 2013.


Educational Background

Uhuru attended St Mary's School in Nairobi. Between 1979 and 1980, he also briefly worked as a teller at the Kenya Commercial Bank.[9]

After attending St. Mary's school, Uhuru went on to study economics, political science and government at Amherst College in the United States.[10][11][3] Upon his graduation, Uhuru returned to Kenya, and started a company, Wilham Kenya Limited, through which he sourced and exported agricultural produce.[12]

Work Experience

Uhuru was nominated to Parliament in 1999, he then became the Minister for Local Government under President Daniel Arap Moi and, despite his political inexperience, was favoured by Moi as his successor.[13] Kenyatta ran as KANU's candidate in the December 2002 presidential election, but lost to the opposition candidate Mwai Kibaki by a big margin.[14] He subsequently became Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. He backed Hon. Mwai Kibaki for re-election in the December 2007 presidential election and was named Minister of Local Government by Former President Mwai Kibaki in January 2008, before being appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade in April 2008 as part of the new coalition government.[15]

Subsequently, Uhuru Kenyatta was Minister of Finance from 2009 to 2012, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister. Accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of committing crimes against humanity in relation to the violent aftermath of the 2007 election, he resigned as Minister of Finance on 26 January 2012.[16] He was elected as President of Kenya in the March 2013 presidential election, defeating Raila Odinga with a slim majority in a single round of voting.

Politics

In the 1997 general election, Uhuru Kenyatta contested for the Gatundu South Constituency parliamentary seat, once held by his father, but lost to Moses Mwihia, a Nairobi architect.[17]

In 1999, Moi appointed Uhuru to chair the Kenya Tourism Board, a government parastatal. In 2001, he was nominated as a Member of Parliament, and joined the Cabinet as Minister for Local Government.[18] He would also later be elected First Vice Chairman of KANU.[18]

In the 2002 nomination process, which was widely thought as undemocratic and underhand, Moi influenced Uhuru Kenyatta's nomination as KANU's preferred presidential candidate, sparking an outcry from other interested contenders and a massive exit from the party ensued. This move by the late President Moi was seen as a ploy to install Uhuru as a puppet so that even in retirement, Moi would still rule the country through Uhuru and presumably insulate himself against the numerous charges of abuse of office that plagued his presidency.

Uhuru finished second to Mwai Kibaki in the General Elections, with 31% of the vote.[19][20] He conceded defeat and took up an active leadership role as Leader of the Opposition.[17]

In January 2005, Uhuru Kenyatta defeated Nicholas Biwott for chairmanship of KANU, taking 2,980 votes among party delegates against Biwott's 622 votes.[21]

Uhuru led his party KANU in the referendum campaigns against the draft constitution in 2005, having teamed up with the Liberal Democratic Party, a rebel faction in the Kibaki government, to form the Orange Democratic Movement.[22] The result of this was a vote against the adoption of the draft constitution by a noticeable margin, which was a great political embarrassment to Emilio Mwai Kibaki.[23][24][25]

In November 2006, Kenyatta was displaced as KANU leader by the late Nicholas Biwott.[26][27] On 28 December 2006, the High Court of Kenya reinstated Uhuru Kenyatta as KANU chairman. However, further court proceedings followed.[28] On 28 June 2007, the High Court confirmed Kenyatta as party leader, ruling that there was insufficient evidence for Biwott's argument that Kenyatta had joined another party.[29]

In the run up to the 2007 general election, he led KANU to join a coalition (called Party of National Unity "PNU") with President Mwai Kibaki who was running for a second term against Raila Odinga.[30] PNU won the controversial 2007 elections but the dispute over the poll resulted in the 2007–08 Kenyan crisis.[31][32]

Under an agreement between the two parties to end the chaos, Kibaki remained as president in a power sharing agreement with Raila as Prime Minister, while Uhuru Kenyatta was Kibaki's choice as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister For Finance in his share of Cabinet slots.[18][33]

On 13 September 2007, Uhuru Kenyatta withdrew from the December 2007 presidential election in favour of Kibaki for re-election.[34] He said that he did not want to run unless he could be sure of winning.[35]

Following the election, amidst the controversy that resulted when Kibaki was declared the victor despite claims of fraud from challenger Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement, Kibaki appointed Kenyatta as Minister for Local Government on 8 January 2008.[36]

After Kibaki and Odinga reached a power-sharing agreement, Kenyatta was named Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade on 13 April 2008, as part of the Grand Coalition Cabinet. He was the Deputy Prime Minister representing the PNU, while another Deputy Prime Minister, Musalia Mudavadi, represented the ODM.[37][38][39]

Kenyatta and the rest of the Cabinet were sworn in on 17 April.[40][41] Uhuru Kenyatta was later moved from Local Government and appointed Minister for Finance on 23 January 2009.[42] During his tenure, he spearheaded a number of reform measures that changed how treasury and government by extension transact business, such as the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and a fund for the inclusion of the informal sector in the mainstream economy.[citation needed]

In 2013, Uhuru Kenyatta was elected as the 4th President of Kenya under The National Alliance (TNA), which was part of the Jubilee Alliance with his running mate William Ruto's United Republican Party (URP).[43] Uhuru and Ruto won 50.07% of votes cast, with closest rivals, Raila Odinga and running mate Kalonzo Musyoka of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy garnering 42%.[44]

Raila Amolo Odinga disputed the election results at the Supreme Court which however held (7–0) that the election of Uhuru was valid and such irregularities as existed did not make a difference to the final outcome.[1] Uhuru Kenyatta was therefore sworn in as president on 9 April 2013.[45]

Uhuru ran for president in the elections held on 4 March 2013 and garnered 6,173,433 votes (50.03%) out of the 12,338,667 votes cast. As this was above the 50% plus 1 vote threshold, he won the election in the first round thus evading a run-off between the top two candidates.[46] He was, therefore, declared the fourth President of the Republic of Kenya by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

According to the IEBC, Raila Odinga garnered 5,340,546 votes (43.4%) and was thus the second in the field of eight candidates. CORD, under the leadership of presidential candidate Raila Odingalodged a petition with the Supreme Court of Kenya on 10 March 2013 challenging Uhuru's election.[47]

On 30 March 2013, Dr Willy Mutunga, the Chief Justice of Kenya, read the unanimous Supreme Court ruling declaring the election of Uhuru Kenyatta and his running-mate, William Ruto, as valid.[48] On 11 August 2017, the Chairman of the IEBC, Wafula Chebukati announced Uhuru's reelection to a second term in office during the 2017 Kenyan general election, with 54% of the popular vote.[4][5] This was later contested in court and annulled. Innulment, a second election was required in which Uhuru Kenyatta won with 98% of the vote with a 39% voter turnout.[49]

On 9 March 2018 Uhuru Kenyatta agreed on a truce between the opposition leader, Raila Odinga.[50] This action marked the country's watershed moment that redrew its political architecture.[51] On 27 November 2019, Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Building Bridges Initiatives (BBI) in Bomas of Kenya.[52] This is one of the outcomes as a result of the truce with the opposition leader Raila Odinga as its implementations will foresee some amendments in the Kenyan Constitution.[53]

Projects



About Kenya Mpya

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