Mwai Kibaki served as Kenya’s third president from December 2002 to April 2013
Nairobi:
Former Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki, who led the East African nation for greater than a decade, has died, his successor Uhuru Kenyatta introduced on Friday. He was 90.
“It’s a unhappy day for us as a rustic. Now we have misplaced an amazing chief,” Kenyatta stated in an deal with on state tv.
Kenyan politicians, African leaders and former colonial ruler Britain had been amongst these to ship their condolences.
Kibaki, a veteran politician whose profession dated again to the start of unbiased Kenya, served because the nation’s third president from December 2002 to April 2013, taking up from the authoritarian rule of Daniel arap Moi.
His rule noticed essentially the most violent election in Kenya’s historical past when greater than 1,100 folks died in bloody ethnic battles after disputed 2007 polls, however he additionally oversaw the adoption of a brand new structure with reforms geared toward stopping such unrest.
Kibaki left a legacy of sturdy development within the regional financial powerhouse, launching main infrastructure initiatives and boosting the struggling well being and schooling sectors.
However his rule was additionally marred by rampant authorities corruption and his lavish spending on flagship initiatives contributed to the nation’s debt mountain.
Kibaki had saved a low profile since leaving workplace, making few public appearances.
Particulars about his dying haven’t been formally disclosed. Nevertheless his well being had fluctuated since a critical automotive accident in 2002 and he had been out and in of hospital in recent times.
Kenyatta stated a state funeral could be held, with out giving a date.
He additionally ordered a interval of nationwide mourning from Friday till sundown on the day he’s buried, with all flags on public buildings to be flown at half-mast.
‘Visionary statesman’
“As a number one determine in Kenya’s post-independence historical past… Kibaki earned the biding respect and affection of the folks of this nation,” Kenyatta stated.
“President Kibaki can be ceaselessly remembered because the gentleman of Kenyan politics, a superb debater whose eloquence, wit, and allure gained the day time-and-time once more.”
Tributes additionally got here from throughout Kenya and the African continent, from Burundi to Zambia, in addition to regional blocs.
“The area shares in your lack of an iconic chief & visionary statesman,” Workneh Gebeyehu, govt secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Improvement (IGAD), stated on Twitter.
“Kibaki is likely one of the freedom fighters of our nation, he served this nation for a few years with diligence, forthrightness, honesty and transparency,” stated veteran Kenyan chief Raila Odinga, who’s making his fifth run for the presidency in August elections.
“We mourn the passing of former President Kibaki, a real statesman who ushered in a brand new democratic and financial period in Kenyan politics,” British Excessive Commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott stated on Twitter.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
