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 1992. He was criticized as a "johnny come lately" opportunist who, unlike his two main opposition presidential election opponents in that year, Kenneth Matiba and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was taking advantage of multiparty despite not having fought for it. Kibaki came third in the subsequent presidential elections of 1992, when the divided opposition lost to president Moi and KANU despite having received more than two thirds of the vote. He then came second to Moi in the 1997 elections, when again, Moi beat a divided opposition to retain the presidency. In January 1998, Kibaki became the leader of the official