Uhuru Kenyatta waves after being sworn-in April 9, 2024 in Nairobi. SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images
NAIROBI — Uhuru Kenyatta became Kenya’s fourth president Tuesday, ending a year of campaigns and a month of electoral disputes. Over sixty thousand people packed into Moi Stadium near Nairobi to watch outgoing president Mwai Kibaki hand power to Kenyatta in Kenya’s first peaceful transfer in twenty years of multiparty democracy. Kenyatta was sworn in with same Bible used fifty years ago by his father, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, but the younger Kenyatta inherits a country politically divided yet poised to grow economically.
Kenyatta’s route to State House has been circuitous. Born in colonialism’s last years, Kenyatta was named Uhuru—freedom in Swahili—in anticipation of independence. After attending Amherst College, Kenyatta entered his family’s extensive businesses and was known more for partying than politics until his father’s successor Daniel Arap Moi handpicked him as successor. The link to the aging autocrat caused Kenyatta to lose his first presidential bid to Kibaki, but five years later Kenyatta supported his rival for reelection. That year, violence broke out after Kibaki was sworn in amid widespread rigging allegations, and Kenyatta allegedly funded political gangs that terrorized other tribes. The resulting ICC case against Kenyatta may have propelled his political career, giving him both the motivation to run (in order to stay out of jail), and the means to win — he joined adversary and fellow indictee William Ruto as a show of ethnic reconciliation while painting the ICC charges as neocolonialism.
Indeed, Kenyatta’s ascendency defies the West, whose diplomats warned of “consequences” if he became president. But they’ve backtracked since, with Western delegations attending the inauguration alongside the likes of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe (and, weirdly, Rev. Jesse Jackson, who came as Kenyatta’s special guest). That’s because the West needs Kenya for regional diplomacy and security, just as Kenya needs Western aid and trade. Yet Kenyatta enters a community of East African leaders like Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni who, though dependent on aid, are increasingly brusque. In a sharply worded speech at the ceremony, Museveni attacked the ICC. “I want to salute the Kenyan people for the rejection of the blackmail by the ICC,” he said, blaming the West for using the court “to install leaders of their choice in Africa.” Kenyatta was likewise clear about shifting power. “We . . . insist on relating with all nations as equals, not juniors,” he said. “No group of countries should have control or monopoly on international institutions.” For all the ICC-bashing, though, Kenyatta will likely win his case. The ICC prosecution says they’ve faced unprecedented witness intimidation, and frustratingly low cooperation from Kenya’s government. Witnesses have disappeared while others suddenly recanted five years of testimony. There seems little chance key witnesses will testify against Kenyatta, Kenya’s richest, and now most powerful man. And even if they do testify, Kenyatta is already pushing to use video links so he won’t have to attend the repeatedly delayed court proceedings. It should also be noted that the ICC has so far been unable to enforce its rulings meaningfully. Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, the only other sitting head of state besides Kenyatta facing ICC charges, has gone untouched by an arrest warrant for four years.
That means Kenyatta will have time to pursue policies, and his first goal must be to unite a nation riven by mistrust after a disputed election. Nearly half the country doubts his victory’s legitimacy, while many view a Kenyatta presidency as the continuation of years of rule by Kikuyu tribal elite at other tribes’ expense. So in his inauguration speech, Kenyatta brought his considerable oratory skills to bear to emphasize his willingness to work for all Kenyans regardless of ethnicity. “The time has come not to ask what community we come from, but rather what dreams we share,” he implored. “My fellow Kenyans, we must move forward together.” He added that a united Kenya will come only through better health care, education, and economic opportunity for all.
It will take more than soaring rhetoric to achieve his stated goals, so Kenyatta must now walk his talk. Immediately, that means building a cabinet representing all ethnicities and making good on his first-100-days promises, including eliminating maternity fees (Kenyan hospitals are known for degrading treatment of mothers who cannot pay) and giving a laptop to every first-grade student. Longer-term deliverables are economic: integrating the East African economies in order to break dependence on Western aid while improving infrastructure across the country — not just in Nairobi and the Kikuyu-heavy central region, as Kibaki did. Kenya just struck oil in the Turkana deserts, and the new government must manage that windfall so elites don’t reap profits while locals remain marginalized. Kenyatta has made further promises of women’s and youth initiatives, achieving food security, overhauling the electrical grid, and winning a war against Somali terrorists. Though licking its electoral wounds, an emboldened opposition is ready to hold the president accountable for all these pledges. So as Kenyatta said in his speech today, ‘This work begins now’. And he has his ‘work’ cut out for him. He can most easily assuage opposition fears by appointing a diverse cabinet, but the other promises require diverting real resources inside Kenya’s corruption-riddled government. Kenyatta is no anti-corruption crusader (though as the country’s richest man he personally has little need to siphon off public cash), but tenders for technology and infrastructure projects, or allocating money for vague “initiatives,” are easy targets for graft. Members of parliament have already demanded a pay raise before even showing up to their first day on the job, and Kenyatta will have to show considerable backbone to stand up to them if he wants his vision to go through.
