Mwai Kibaki generated resources such as increased tax revenue collection. Relations with China, Japan and other non-western powers improved and expanded remarkably in the Kibaki years. China and Japan especially, the Asian Tigers such as Malaysia and Singapore, Brazil, the Middle East and to a lesser extent, South Africa, Libya, other African Countries, and even Iran, became increasingly important economic partners. President Kibaki was accused of ruling with a small group of his elderly peers, mainly from the educated side of the Kikuyu elite that emerged in the Kenyatta era, usually referred to as the "Kitchen Cabinet" or the "Mount Kenya Mafia".
Mwai Kibaki 2002 popular mandate for a complete break with the past and fix the politics largely mobilized along ethnic interests. "... when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew." Elected in 2002 on a reform platform, Kibaki was seen to have re-established the "status quo ante". His opponents charged that a major aim of his presidency was the preservation of the privileged position of the elite that emerged during the Kenyatta years, of which he was part. I the sum