page_title: History of Kenya
section_title: 2002 elections
hierarchical_section_title: History of Kenya / Independence / Recent history (2002 to present) / 2002 elections
caption_attribution_description: U.S. President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush welcome President Mwai Kibaki and Mrs. Kibaki of the Republic of Kenya to the White House Monday, October 5, 2003.
context_page_description: A part of Eastern Africa,
  the territory of what is now Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a truly multi-ethnic state.
  The European and Arab presence in Mombasa dates to the Early Modern period, but European exploration of the interior began in the 19th century. The British Empire established the East Africa Protectorate in 1895, from 1920 known as the Kenya Colony.
  The independent Republic of Kenya was formed in 1963. It was ruled as a de facto one-party state by the Kenya African National Union, led by Jomo Kenyatta during 1963 to 1978. Kenyatta was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi, who ruled until 2002.
context_section_description: Constitutionally barred from running in the December 2002 presidential elections, Moi unsuccessfully promoted Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first President, as his successor. A rainbow coalition of opposition parties routed the ruling KANU party, and its leader, Moi's former vice-president Mwai Kibaki, was elected President by a large majority.
  On 27 December 2002, by 62% the voters overwhelmingly elected members of the National Rainbow Coalition (NaRC) to parliament and NaRC candidate Mwai Kibaki (b. 1931) to the presidency. Voters rejected the Kenya African National Union's (KANU) presidential candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta, the handpicked candidate of outgoing president Moi. International and local observers reported the 2002 elections to be generally more fair and less violent than those of both 1992 and 1997. His strong showing allowed Kibaki to choose a cabinet, to seek international support and to balance power within the NaRC.
caption: Mwai Kibaki and (the late) Mrs. Lucy Kibaki with US President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush at the White House during a state visit in 2003.
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