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,
Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – Asili card and refusal to stand in the 1997 Presidential Elections. Martin Shikuku therefore won the party's presidential nomination and went on to win only 0.6% of the Presidential Vote, with the party winning 1 National Assembly seat. In the 2002 election, Ford-Asili won 2 out of 212 elected seats and did not field a presidential candidate, choosing to support the successful NARC alliance candidate Mwai Kibaki. In 2007, Ford-Asili supported Mwai Kibaki again as presidential candidate, this time under the Party of National Unity banner and won a single parliamentary seat in its own right (Kirinyaga Central - John Kariuki).