Mwai Kibaki, the third President of Kenya, has died.
He became President in 2002, succeeding long-serving leader, Daniel Arap Moi, who was ineligible to stand after democratic reforms in the 1990s restricted the number of terms a person could serve.
Kibaki was born in 1931. After finishing school he had wanted to join the army, but his ambition was thwarted when British colonial authorities prevented members of Kibaki’s ethnic group, the Kikuyu, from joining the armed forces. Instead he went onto Makerere University and from there to the London School of Economics. He then returned to Makerere University as a lecturer.
He entered active politics just before Kenya became independent in the early 1960s, helping draft the country’s constitution, and becoming an MP after independence for the Kenya African National Union (KANU).
After a long career in Parliament Kibaki was appointed as Vice President when Daniel Arap Moi succeeded Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, as leader in 1978. When multi-party politics came to Kenya in the early 1990s Kibaki left KANU to challenge Moi in elections, failing to do so in both 1992 and 1997.
In 2002 Kibaki became the candidate of a number of opposition parties to challenge KANU. Kibaki won in a landslide, securing over 60% of the vote to beat the candidate of KANU (current Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta).
Kibaki won re-election in 2007 although there was widespread allegations of rigging and cheating, with violence breaking out between a number of ethnic groups. The crisis was resolved through the formation of a power-sharing government with Kibaki’s rival, Raila Odinga, becoming Prime Minister.
Although Kibaki was criticised for not making a decisive break with the tribal-based politics of the past under his government the Kenyan economy grew rapidly and the country began to reduce its reliance on foreign aid. However, corruption was a major problem, something which he never managed to tame.
While he was President a new Kenyan constitution was passed, which he reportedly considered his greatest achievement.
He was succeeded by Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013.
He is survived by four children.