John Michuki group of parliamentarians led by the then leader of Opposition, Mwai Kibaki, which formed the National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), as a merger of smaller opposition parties that endorsed Kibaki as flag-bearer. In October 2002, NAK coalesced with the breakaway faction of KANU, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) in 2002, which dislodged Moi and KANU after four decades in power. Michuki became a central figure and a key Kibaki ally in the NARC politics, retaining his Kangema parliamentary seat. President Kibaki subsequently appointed him Minister of Transport and Communications in the NARC
Mwai Kibaki and chairman of the Economic Planning Commission in 1963, he was promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966. In 1969, he became Minister of Finance and Economic Planning where he served until 1982. In 1974, Kibaki, facing serious competition for his Donholm Constituency seat from a Mrs. Jael Mbogo, whom he had only narrowly and controversially beaten for the seat in the 1969 elections, moved his political base from Nairobi to his rural home, Othaya, where he was subsequently elected as Member of Parliament. The same year "Time" magazine rated him among the top 100 people in the