Word: moi
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...ever a man embodied Louis XIV's legendary boast, "L 'état, c 'est moi," it was the late Algerian leader Houari Boumedienne. When he died last December, Boumedienne was not only Algeria's President but also its Minister of Defense, president of the Council of the Revolution and chief of the National Liberation Front (F.L.N.), the country's only political party. Finding a President to succeed such a pervasive figure presented a delicate problem for the eight-man council, many of whose members aspired to the post. In the end, the council settled...
There was a price for the tranquil change, and arap Moi appears to have cheerfully paid it. Kenyatta's hand-picked Vice President for nearly a dozen years and Acting President since the death of Mzee (the old man), he won the job, more or less, on the assumption that he would not make too much of it. A member of the minority Kalenjin tribal group, arap Moi will be particularly dependent on three powerful figures who belong to the dominant Kikuyu tribe: Minister of Natural Resources Mbiyu Koinange, 71, Attorney General Charles Njonjo, 58, and Finance Minister Mwai...
...personality, arap Moi could not be more different from his flamboyant, autocratic predecessor. A teetotaling, shy and straitlaced man whose most salient characteristic is an occasional flash of quick temper, he has been described as having "about as much charisma as a dry maize cob." The son of poor farmers hi the Great Rift Valley, arap Moi had by 1946 become headmaster of a government school in Kabarnet. He was one of the first Africans in Kenya to enter politics, and one of the first to be appointed to the preindependence, British-dominated national Legislative Council...
...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...
...President is well aware that political continuity is his major selling point. Says he: "I am confident we can contain any situation if we are seriously concerned with peace and stability." Arap Moi's program is relatively modest in its ambitions: it includes 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...