A former Kenya President, Mwai Kibaki, has died at the age of 90.
This was announced by the Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Mwai Kibaki served as Kenya’s third president, from 2003 to 2013.
The star student at the London School of Economics, Kibaki ran Kenya’s Treasury in his early 30s. He combined technocratic ability with solid liberal social reform instincts.
Kibaki’s other great reforming instinct beyond education was to bring civil society in to help fight corruption. He appointed John Githongo to act as the permanent secretary for governance.
He presided over a tax and spend growth boom, which should have propelled Kenya into mid-income status, with extensive tech and industrial investments but was undermined by corporate short-term greed and political graft.
Under pressure from Kofi Annan, Kibaki agreed to power-sharing after the election violence of 2007-2008, which opened the pathway to the Odinga-Uhuru deal of today.
