Word: kenyattas
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...most significant thing the public did last week was to give a rousing vote of confidence to Daniel arap Moi, 55. Arap Moi has been Kenya's President since the death 14 months ago of Jomo Kenyatta, the autocratic old warrior who secured the East African country's inde pendence from Britain in 1963 and ruled it like a benign colonial governor ever after. Not only did Arap Moi run without opposition in his own district,* but many old Kenyatta regime holdovers were ousted. Arap Moi will now be free to put his own imprint on Kenya...
...modest man who does not smoke or drink, Arap Moi was the flamboyant Kenyatta's somewhat faceless Vice President for eleven years before Jomo's death. Then, the conventional wisdom was that Kenya would be torn apart in a bloody tribal struggle for power, because no one in sight had anything like the following of the Mzee (Swahili for old man). But with the backing of the two most powerful Cabinet ministers belonging to the dominant Kikuyu tribe, Arap Moi was selected as the new President by the country's ruling party, the Kenya African National Union...
...feel that he has grown in stature since becoming Prime Minister, but fear that he has been severely weakened by the recent parliamentary defections of Chikerema and his followers. Says a senior British official: "The situation in which Muzorewa finds himself would tax the ingenuity and toughness of a Kenyatta, and the bishop is not by any stretch of the imagination a Kenyatta. But stranger things have happened in the world of politics than Muzorewa discovering his manhood...
...longest-serving member of the Kenya National Assembly, arap Moi is known as "the father of the House" - a pallid echo of Kenyatta's favorite title, "the father of the nation." Says one Western diplomat in Nairobi: "The man's no Kenyatta. But it's rather like the American system of choosing a fairly ordinary guy whom quite a lot of people respect and few really hate...
...more equitable land reform, further diversification of the heavily agricultural economy, and increased Kenyan participation in private enterprise. He has also vowed to fight political corruption. That could be a real challenge. Among the Kenyans who prospered mightily during Mzee's regime were members of his extensive family. Kenyatta's widow Mama Ngina, among others, amassed impressive landholdings. The father of the House sees no contradiction. "We shall build Kenya" he said, "into a single monument to the everlasting memory of our father of the nation in the living spirit he himself taught...