Mwai Kibaki and 1997. He served as the Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament from 1998 to 2002. In the 2002 presidential election, he was elected as President of Kenya. Kibaki was born in 1931 in Kikuyu village, Othaya division of Kenya's then Nyeri District, now Nyeri County. He is the youngest son of Kikuyu peasants Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ. Though baptised as Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries in his youth, he has been known as Mwai Kibaki throughout his public life. Family oral history maintains that his early education was made possible by his much older brother-in-law, Paul Muruthi,
Mwai Kibaki manner, and speculation since then is that he had suffered a stroke, his second, the first being said to have occurred sometimes in the 1970s. His subsequent ill health greatly diminished his performance during his first term and the affairs of government during that time are said to have been largely run by a group of loyal aides, both in and out of government. Kibaki did not look well, for instance, when he appeared live on TV on 25 September 2003 to appoint Moody Awori Vice President after the death in office of Vice President, Michael Wamalwa Kijana. In January