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 Kibaki and his first Government to exert political control over the country or to maintain sufficient legitimacy as would have allowed a civilised contest with him at the polls to be possible. Kibaki's regime failed to unite the country, and allowed feelings of marginalisation to fester into what became the post election violence. He and his then Government were complacent in the support they considered they would receive in any election from the majority Kikuyu community and failed to heed the views of the legitimate leaders of other communities. Critics posit that President Kibaki failed to take advantage of the