See the chaotic scenes as Kenya elects new president Uhuru
By RICHARD DOGGETT and NICHOLAS LIPUS
Mukono has been a leading contender in upcoming presidential polls in Kenya
The incumbent Kenyatta was a strong ally of Western-backed forces against violent Islamists. In April, he was elected to a second term but has since been overthrown by the military
Kenyatta’s son is in jail on treason charges as an alleged member of a plot to bring down the government
AUGUST 2012
AUGUST 2012
The Kenyan civil war has been fought in the name of the country’s independence from Britain. The struggle by the Kenyan army has been a direct response to a Kenyan rebellion against colonial rule, when British troops invaded the country in the late 1950s.
Kenyatta was elected president in 2007 after the disputed but divisive elections of 2005, when he faced charges of fraud after a vote for a second term that he had secured through violence, intimidation and voter fraud.
Kenyan President Kenyatta poses with US President Barack Obama
After the disputed presidential election
In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, Kenyatta sought to strengthen the power of his government by supporting a program of structural reform to redistribute wealth and redistribute control of the economy. In the midst of the economic crisis that followed, the government launched an anti-corruption campaign, and in 2009 elections were held for the first time where Kenyatta stood as a pro-business candidate.
In the 2010 and 2012 general elections, Kenyatta’s government was the subject of repeated attacks from a popular protest movement, which has since grown through the growing anger over high food and fuel prices.
On Monday, the government of President Kenyatta, which is led by Raila Odinga, responded to the popular protests by announcing that he will run for the second term as the presidential candidate of the All People’s Party, a coalition of parties in which the most likely would-be president is Raila Odinga.
Kenyatta defeated his more charismatic rival of the past decade, Mwai Kibaki, in 2007 following a chaotic election that became known as the post-election violence. But following the bloody crackdowns that accompanied the