Doesn't Run in the Family
One of the more interesting details of the landslide victory of opposition party candidate Mwai Kibaki in last week's presidential election in Kenya is that the man he beat, Uhuru Kenyatta, not only represented the ruling party of outgoing elected tyrant Daniel Arap Moi, but is also the son of Kenya's first president and founding father, Jomo Kenyatta. The elder Kenyatta led the Mau-Mau uprising against British colonialism in the 1950s and took office upon Kenya's independence. He pursued a moderate political and economic course which helped make Kenya into a relatively successful state by the mid-1970s, when the more Left-wing policies of other first-generation post-colonial African leaders had led to spectacular failures elsewhere on the continent. Moi was his deputy and hand-picked successor, and when he came to power in 1978 it looked for a while that he would continue the moderate course set by Kenyatta. However, Moi became increasingly corrupt, paranoid and authoritarian and both the political and economic climate of Kenya soured. Finally forced to step down by constitutional term limits imposed largely by outside interests (the IMF, among others), Moi was so completely discredited within his country that he could not even arrange to have himself succeeded by the son of the country's national hero.
Bravo for Kenya. Let's take a moment to applaud a democracy where being the otherwise ill-qualified offspring of a former head of state doesn't fool enough of the people to guarantee victory. And let's hope that Kenyatta doesn't appeal the election results to the US Supreme Court.
2:18:10 PM 
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