Uhuru Kenyatta: following in father’s presidential footsteps

Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday became Kenya’s head of state, despite a looming ICC trial for crimes against humanity over election violence in Kenya’s volatile 2007 election.Uhuru, 51, and son of Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta took the national mantle after edging his key rival, Raila Amolo Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement. Odinga, 68, and son of Kenya’s founding opposition leader, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and Prime Minister in the outgoing cabinet has since declared his intention to contest the election in the Kenya Supreme Court.Uhuru, which means “freedom”, and Kenyatta, the “light of Kenya” in Swahili –now assumes the mantle of Kenya’s huge national aspirations, but not without controversy.Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto face trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity for their alleged role in Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election violence. A man of immense wealth, he was born in 1961, just after the release of his father Jomo from nearly 10 years’ incarceration by British colonial forces, and two years before Kenya’s independence.Fifty years on, he is one of Kenya’s richest and most powerful men. The Kenyatta family owns vast tracts of valuable land across the nation.The Kenyatta family business empire also includes major banking and media interests as well as Kenya’s main dairy business.Uhuru acquired his education at the elite Amherst College in the United States, where he studied political science and economics. He is considered the top political leader of the Kikuyu people, Kenya’s largest tribe making up about 17 percent of the population.He is known to appeal to large numbers of Kenyans from different ethnic backgrounds, and is able to mingle not only with the elite he was born into but also with the average Kenyan, cracking jokes using local street slang.In the early 1990s, he joined with the sons of other independence heroes to call for political reform but gradually drew closer to former president Daniel Arap Moi.He was elected chairman of his hometown branch of ruling party KANU in 1997. His inherited family business empire oversaw five-star hotels, airlines and commercial farming, and it was with this background that President Daniel arap Moi appointed him to run the Kenya Tourism Board in 1999 - a position in which he was introduced to some of the country’s most important power-brokers.Nominated to parliament in 2001, his career accelerated as President Moi endorsed Kenyatta as his successor just a year later. Despite losing to Mwai Kibaki by a substantial margin in that attempt, Kenyatta, of the Kikuyu tribe, backed the 2007 re-election campaign of Kibaki, a fellow Kikuyu.For all his noted privilege, Kenyatta quickly established himself as a “man of the people” with an easy-going popular approach, seemingly comfortable socializing with Kenyans of any class or ethnic background and enjoying the national favorite Tusker beer.A classified US diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks claimed that Kenyatta, “bright and charming, even charismatic … drinks too much and is not a hard worker”.Despite these allegations, he has won praise for his Economic Stimulus Programme as minister of finance, investing in food security and boosting entrepreneurship and innovation. He also made headlines around the world when he insisted that cabinet ministers and other officials give up their Mercedes government cars in favor of Volkswagen Passats.Uhuru is married to Margaret Wanjiru and has three children, Jomo, Ngina and Jaba. Uhuru’s wife Margaret is not very well known because she prefers to keep a low profile.