For Kenya's new leader, it's been a long road to the top

Kibaki rose up through the KANU ranks during those early days, beginning as the volunteer executive officer and eventually becoming Kenya's longest-serving finance minister under the country's first president, Jomo Kenyatta. When Mr. Moi, then vice president, assumed power in 1978 on the death of Mr. Kenyatta, the well respected Kibaki became vice president.

After 10 years as the country's No. 2, Kibaki was fired by Moi in a cabinet reshuffle. Kibaki remained as health minister for several more years, until he quit to run in the opposition.

"He was the vice president in the days when that office was worth its name," reads Kibaki's website, in an attempt to respond to critics who see Kibaki as part of the old guard. "That was before power was concentrated in one man, and before the rampant, naked, shameless corruption became the order of the present administration."

With the advent of multipartyism in 1991, Kibaki was one of the first KANU men to peel off. He formed the Democratic Party of Kenya. He came in third in the 1992 elections, and in 1997, out of a field of 15 candidates, he ran a close second to Moi. He and other opposition figures were blamed for splitting the vote and allowing Moi to win. His detractors charged that he was lacking in drive and berated him for failing to be more forceful in building an opposition.

But dismissing calls that he retire from politics and concentrate on his growing banking and insurance ventures, Kibaki, the longest-standing member of Parliament after Moi, returned for another term.

This year, having learned the lessons of the past, some 10 opposition parties united, joining forces with KANU malcontents to form the National Rainbow Coalition, and running in the elections with Kibaki as their agreed leader.

The gambit paid off. Yesterday, Kenya's electoral commission announced Kibaki the winner with 63 percent of Friday's vote to 30 percent for Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya's first president (Moi was prohibited by the Constitution from running again.) Kibaki will be inaugurated Monday.

But, say observers, Kibaki's victory is just the beginning. He is inheriting a country with high poverty, crippling domestic debt, growing HIV incidence, poor infrastructure, and terrible corruption and mismanagement on all levels.

Kibaki has promised to change the Constitution, decentralize power, clean up corruption, bring back international donor aid, provide free primary education, and step down after one five-year term.

If Kibaki immediately turns his attention to fighting corruption, one Western diplomat says that important foreign aid will come pouring in.

In an impromptu victory speech yesterday in his garden, Kibaki told reporters that Kenyans had given him the challenge he had long been waiting for.

"I can assure you," he said, "I will rise to the occasion."

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