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Kenya NEWS MEDIA
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Background: Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo
KENYATTA led Kenya from independence in 1963 until his death
in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power
in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto
one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya
African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party
in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for
political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically
fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in
elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and
fraud, but were viewed as having generally reflected the will
of the Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December
2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai KIBAKI,
running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition
group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU
candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following
a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform. KIBAKI's
NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the constitutional
review process. Government defectors joined with KANU to form
a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement,
which defeated the government's draft constitution in a
popular referendum in November 2005.
Borders: Ethiopia 861 km, Somalia 682 km, Sudan 232 km, Tanzania 769
km, Uganda 933 km
Population: 34,255,720
GDP per capita: $560.29 per capita
Capital with population: Nairobi - 2,000,000
Largest city with population: Nairobi - 2,000,000
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