KENYA/FILE: Uhuru Kenyatta looks to follow in father's foot-steps and win the presidency on March 4

Record ID: 362491

  • Title: KENYA/FILE: Uhuru Kenyatta looks to follow in father's foot-steps and win the presidency on March 4
  • Date: 1st March 2013
  • Summary: THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS (FILE - 2011) (REUTERS) RUTO ARRIVING AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Netherlands
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6F1BGW8YT9PD0KPRT0Z55TFS6
  • Story Text: Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's deputy prime minister and son of its first president is putting the final touches to his presidential campaign. According to recent polls his party, The National Alliance or TNA is neck and neck with the Prime Minister Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement or ODM.
    Son of independent Kenya's first President Jomo Kenyatta, Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also a former finance minister carries an indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity committed after the 2007 elections.
    Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto, who faces similar charges, are traveling around the country campaigning.
    On Thursday (February 28) the pair were in rural Narok, deep in Kenya's Rift Valley and home to the Maasai community.
    "We want our coalition to form the next government that will unite all Kenyans and solve their problems without looking at their tribe, religion or where they come from," Ruto told supporters.
    Many thought the ICC charges, which Kenyatta strongly refutes would destroy his bid for the presidency, but on the contrary the indictment has only helped spur support for him and Ruto among many Kenyans who see the charges as foreign meddling in domestic matters.
    Kenyatta, whose family was ranked the richest in Kenya in 2011 by Forbes magazine and Ruto, a former close ally of Prime Minister Odinga are running on a platform of re-unifying the country and forming an all inclusive government.
    "We have formed a coalition with Ruto and others because we realised that there is no single leader who is capable of solving all the problems. We have that opportunity now that we are united," said Kenyatta.
    Oddly, the two men are accused of organizing attacks on each other's supporters after the disputed poll.
    Their Jubilee coalition has brought together two of Kenya's largest communities - the Kikuyu and Kalenjin, respectively giving Kenyatta a reasonable chance of following in his father's footsteps and becoming president.
    The election is slated for March 4th with a run-off to follow a month later if the winner fails to achieve an outright majority.
    Kenyatta who was born in October 1961 will become Kenya's youngest president if elected. He will also become the second president in Africa to be indicted by the ICC after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir.
    Political analyst Tom Maliti says it is an irony that the two accused of inciting their communities to violence after the 2007 elections are now working together.
    "It was clearly understood that the ICC was central to why these two are working together. Now, the worst comes in because of the way the argument has been framed that this is an international conspiracy against us i.e. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto to deny us a chance at leadership and yet we want to replace the outgoing president. We believe we have the energy and ideas to drive Kenya forward," said Maliti.
    Kenyatta went to one of the best schools in Nairobi before attending Amherst College in the US where he studied Political Science and Economics. His first prominent stage in politics came after Kenya's second president Daniel Arap Moi nominated him to parliament and later endorsed him in 2002 as his preferred successor on a Kenya Africa National Union (KANU) ticket.
    Moi's decision saw a number of key members of KANU such as Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka walk out of the party in protest and later form a coalition with the current president Mwai Kibaki who trounced Kenyatta in the 2002 vote.
    During the 2007 elections Kenyatta supported President Kibaki's bid for a second term against Odinga. The controversial 2007 poll forced Kibaki and Odinga to form a coalition government.
    Kenyatta became one of the two deputy prime ministers in the coalition government and was later appointed minister for finance. He later left KANU and formed his party TNA which has since formed a coalition with other parties that are backing his bid.
    Kenyatta owns TV a channel, a newspaper outlet and a number of radio stations. His family has vast interests in the country's tourism, banking, construction, dairy and insurance sectors and own huge parcels of land in the Rift Valley, Central and Coastal regions of Kenya.
    The land question has haunted Kenyatta and is thought to be central to nearly all ethnic clashes that bedevil the Rift Valley.
    Kenyatta is charged alongside Ruto and two other Kenyans by the ICC with crimes against humanity. The four are accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for the 2008 post-election violence that left more than 1,200 people dead and forced some 600,000 from their homes The Hague based court links him to the rag-tag militia group, Mungiki, which is accused of carrying out reprisal attacks during the violence.
    Kenyatta's Kikuyu community and Ruto's Kalenjin have clashed over land in the scenic and agricultural-rich Rift Valley for the past two decades.
    The recent voter registration saw a massive turn out in their strongholds and many analysts say if the two communities do unite in this election, they could provide the necessary springboard which will finally see a second Kenyatta ascend to the top job.
    ENDS
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