The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
In 2011 Forbes magazine estimated Kenyatta’s wealth at $500 million (423 million euros). Despite his elite background Kenyatta has a common touch. He easily mixes it up with ordinary Kenyans, eagerly gets down on the dance floor and joshes in the local youth slang and, in his younger years, earned a persistent reputation for partying hard.
A leaked 2009 US diplomatic cable described him as “bright and charming, even charismatic” but warned that “Kenyatta’s liabilities are at least as important as his strengths. He drinks too much and is not a hard worker.”
Give us a second term to continue with the transformational agenda that is lifting the lives of Kenyans across the country #KenyaNiJubilee pic.twitter.com/wfnWGrEAIQ
— Uhuru Kenyatta (@UKenyatta) August 5, 2017
– Dynastic politics –
Kenyatta’s political career is a case study in pragmatism.
In the 1990s, he joined with the sons of other independence heroes to call for democratic reforms but then became a close ally of autocratic former president Daniel arap Moi who had him nominated as the ruling party’s candidate for the presidency in 2002.
Kenyatta lost to fellow Kikuyu politician Mwai Kibaki but then backed Kibaki’s successful re-election bid in 2007, against Odinga who, at the time was allied with Ruto.
The violent fall-out from the disputed result led to a power-sharing government in which Kibaki was president, Odinga prime minister and Kenyatta one of his deputies.
In 2013 the two ICC indictees, Kenyatta and Ruto, joined forces to defeat Odinga in a close and controversial election. Kenyatta won in the first round with a wafer-thin margin of 50.03 percent — a result Odinga disputed, unsuccessfully but peacefully this time, in court.
The upcoming vote is a re-run of 2013 except that this time the opposition has united behind Odinga posing a serious challenge to Kenyatta’s ruling Jubilee Party.
Opinion polls put the two neck and neck.
The election will most likely be the final act in a multi-generational political rivalry stretching back half a century to when Jomo Kenyatta and Odinga’s father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, vied for control of the nation.
If he wins, Kenyatta must stand down after one more term and, at 72, Odinga is regarded as too old to make another bid for the presidency in five years time. Both men’s children are still inexperienced in politics.
I urge all of you to come out in large numbers and vote for Jubilee. Let us secure a resounding first round win for Jubilee #KenyaNiJubilee pic.twitter.com/WFobjpFykX
— Uhuru Kenyatta (@UKenyatta) August 5, 2017
