2002 Kenyan general election 2002 Kenyan general election General elections were held in Kenya on 27 December 2002. They saw the end of the long-standing dominance of the Kenya African National Union, which had governed the country since independence in 1963, including 23 years as the only legal party. Mwai Kibaki of the National Rainbow Coalition was elected president, while the National Rainbow Coalition won a majority in the National Assembly. They were the first truly free general elections held in Kenya since independence in 1964; a number of by-election were held in 1966 before the onset of de facto one-party rule in 1969.
Mwai Kibaki via universal suffrage and an executive Prime Minister elected by Parliament. The draft presented by the Attorney General Amos Wako for the referendum retained sweeping powers for the Presidency. Though Kibaki the proposal, some members of his own cabinet, mainly from the LDP wing led by Raila Odinga, allied with the main opposition party KANU to mobilize a powerful NO campaign that resulted in a majority of 58% of voters rejecting the draft. As a consequence of, and immediately after, the referendum loss, on 23 November 2005, Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet in the middle of his administration's term, with