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Kenyans' joy as Kibaki sworn in
NAIROBI, Kenya -- To cheers from huge crowds, Mwai Kibaki has been sworn in as president of Kenya, ending the 24-year rule of outgoing head of state Daniel arap Moi. "I, Mwai Kibaki, swear that I will be faithful to Kenya and serve it with my whole heart," the former opposition leader said in front of Chief Justice Bernard Chunga, at a ceremony attended by hundreds of thousands of people in a park in the capital Nairobi. With his right leg in a cast after a December 3 road accident, Kibaki pledged to conduct his duties without fear or favour or malice, "so help me God," he said in Kiswahili, the common language of Kenya. Villagers, civil servants, executives and company clerks gathered in one whistling, singing throng in a Nairobi park to see only the third president take office in the east African nation of 30 million people since independence from Britain in 1963. The huge crowd had waited patiently for hours under a hot sun for Kibaki and Moi to arrive for the historic transfer, which ended the Kenya African National Union party's four-decade hold on power. Moi's swansong was marred by heckling from the vast crowd and clumps of mud thrown in his direction as he sang the national anthem. "We welcome the new president. We congratulate him as we congratulate new members of parliament and civic leaders," Moi, who had ruled since 1978, said moments after Kibaki was sworn in. "This is an historic day in the life of our country," said Moi, whose arrival at Nairobi's packed Uhuru Park was greeted by some with chants of "Everything is possible without Moi" and "Moi must go." "Kibaki! He has beaten Moi!" chanted the crowd. "It feels so good it's like independence -- a second independence for Kenya," Jared Othiambo, a worker helping to organise the ceremony under a warm sunny sky, told Reuters. Accompanied by a military band, marching soldiers and a 21-gun salute, Monday's ceremony marked Kenya's first experience of an incumbent ruler handing over to a successor. Moi, 78, was bound by the constitution to retire. Youths clambered up trees for a better view of the platform where Kibaki, 71, was sworn in at a ceremony attended by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa. "No More Bribes" youths shouted at police. The force is seen by many as a corrupt symbol of Moi's autocratic rule over the coffee and tea-growing country.
Kibaki, a former vice president and finance minister, has promised to deliver a more efficient and open government, trim the civil service and revive the stagnant economy. "Although we were sure in the middle of our heart that we would win, you know, until it has happened, you don't know truly that it will happen," Kibaki told supporters on Sunday. "Here we are -- it has happened." Kibaki's National Alliance Rainbow Coalition also gained the greatest number of Kenya's 210 parliamentary seats. The ceremony marked the end of an era under one of Africa's last old-style strongmen, blamed by many Kenyans for rising poverty and corruption in east Africa's biggest economy. Diplomatic sources estimate Kenya lost up to $870 million a year to corruption from 1990 to 1997. "We want Moi to explain why he has ruined the economy and why he kept corrupt people close to him," Victor Onyango, a 24-year-old unemployed man from Nairobi's poor Kibera district told Reuters.
The polls dealt the first defeat to Moi's Kenya African National Union (KANU), in power since independence. The election handed Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) a landslide victory in the presidential race and parliamentary elections. But critics question how much real change the man who served Moi as vice president for a decade can deliver, pointing to recent defectors from the ruling party in his NARC grouping. The electoral commission declared Kibaki winner on Sunday, after KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, 41, the son of the country's first president and Moi's chosen successor, conceded defeat in Friday's vote. Moi, a former headmaster whose face stares from bank notes and portraits in many offices, has stamped his personality on public life in Kenya, where most of the population has never known another leader. Kibaki said on Sunday that fighting corruption would be his top priority, while NARC has wooed voters by promising to do everything from implementing a new constitution to providing free primary school education and reviving health services. A special ramp was erected in the park for the president elect, currently using a wheelchair following a car accident in December in which he broke his arm and injured his neck. For Kibaki, who was beaten by Moi at previous multi-party polls in 1992 and 1997, the inauguration represents the climax of a decade spent campaigning for the presidency. Hailed by Kenyan commentators as a major step forward for the country's democracy, the election campaign avoided the widespread violence that killed hundreds in the run-up to previous multi-party polls. -- CNN Nairobi Bureau Chief Catherine Bond contributed to this report.
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