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  • 4 - Independence and the Making of a President (1963–1964)

  • Anaïs Angelo, Universität Wien, Austria
  • Book:
    Power and the Presidency in Kenya
    Published online:
    11 October 2019
    Print publication:
    31 October 2019, pp 115-140

  • Summary

    Chapter 4 explores how Kenya became, in 1964, a presidential republic. As the previous chapter showed, the centralisation of state resources (i.e. land) was decided before independence had been negotiated. Kenyatta thus found himself in control of centralized resources that enabled him to defend presidentialism (i.e. the concentration of extensive executive powers in the hands of the president) as the only possible system of rule for the post-colony. The chapter reconstructs the negotiations of presidential power: these were hasty and poorly anticipated by the divided Kenyan elite. The chapter argues that presidential rule emerged out of the weaknesses of KADU and KANU contenders, who depended on the central state to access state resources. The creation of an independent presidential republic in 1964 left Kenyatta not only with a new, but also an extensive set of powers to control a territory that was politically, socially and ethnically divided.