Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born 26 October 1961) served as Kenya's fourth President from April 2013 to September 2022. The son of the founding father Jomo Kenyatta, his presidency combined the weight of dynastic expectation, the jeopardy of International Criminal Court charges, a controversial second electoral cycle, and a late political realignment with his long-time rival Raila Odinga that upended the ethnic logic of Kenyan politics.
Key Facts
- Won the March 2013 presidential election on the Jubilee Alliance ticket (his party TNA allied with William Ruto's URP); received approximately 50.07% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff; Raila Odinga contested the result at the Supreme Court but the petition was dismissed
- Both Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto were under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity arising from the 2007-2008 Post Election Violence; the "ICC election" dynamic, "don't be used by foreigners", was a central campaign theme; see ICC Cases Kenya
- ICC charges against Uhuru Kenyatta were dropped in December 2014 citing insufficient evidence; the prosecution alleged witness interference and Kenya government non-cooperation with the court
- August 2017: contested a second election against Odinga; the Supreme Court of Kenya, in an unprecedented ruling, annulled the results on 1 September 2017, citing irregularities in the transmission of results by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC); this was the first time an African Supreme Court had nullified a presidential election
- October 2017 re-run: Odinga boycotted the repeat election citing lack of electoral reforms; Kenyatta won with 98% of the vote on very low turnout; the result was widely regarded as lacking legitimacy despite its legal standing
- March 9, 2018: The Handshake 2018- March 9, 2018: The Handshake 2018 (Kenyatta), and Odinga publicly reconciled at Harambee House, ending months of post-election political crisis and launching the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)
- The Jubilee Party governed through infrastructure investment (the Standard Gauge Railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, completed 2017, was the flagship project), though critics noted debt levels rising significantly
- BBI constitutional amendment process was declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeal in August 2021 and confirmed by the Supreme Court; Kenyatta suffered his most significant political defeat from the judiciary
- 2022 succession: Kenyatta notably declined to endorse his deputy William Ruto for the presidency, instead backing Odinga; the rupture with Ruto was one of the defining political stories of his second term; many Kikuyu voters backed Ruto anyway
- Left office peacefully on 13 September 2022 when William Ruto was inaugurated
See Also
- Jomo Kenyatta
- Kenyatta Presidency
- ICC Cases Kenya
- 2007-2008 Post Election Violence
- The Handshake 2018
- William Ruto Presidency
Related
Jomo Kenyatta | Kenyatta Presidency | ICC Cases Kenya | 2007-2008 Post Election Violence | The Handshake 2018 | Mwai Kibaki | William Ruto Presidency