KENYA: Kenya's landmark presidential race kicked off yesterday when the opposition fielded veteran politician Mr Mwai Kibaki to challenge controversial newcomer Mr Uhuru Kenyatta at forthcoming elections. Mr Kibaki represents the opposition's greatest chance in decades of toppling President Daniel arap Moi's ruling Kenya National African Union (KANU) party.
Addressing a packed conference at Nairobi's Hilton hotel, Mr Kibaki said that Kenya's "period of dictatorship" would soon come to an end.
He vowed to revive the ailing economy and stamp out endemic corruption. "We must start from the top and the top is obviously the president," he said.
Mr Kibaki served as vice-president for a decade under Mr Moi until 1991, when he joined the opposition benches. He is a member of the Kikuyu, Kenya's most populous tribe. Outside, several thousand supporters surged around the entrance to the luxury hotel. The crowd of mostly men cheered and at one point caused a glass lobby door to smash.
Mr Moi has sparked a revolt within KANU through his blunt attempts to impose Mr Kenyatta, son of independence leader Mr Jomo Kenyatta, as his successor.
Last week several senior officials defected to the opposition; yesterday they joined with the mainstream opposition to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC).
The NARC leaders are bound more by a desire to thwart Mr Moi than by shared ideology. But if their pact can hold until the election, then Kenya could see its first change of government since independence in 1963.
Yesterday's speeches were imbued with a sense of historical occasion and peppered with references from the classics, such as Tennyson, Shakespeare and Shaw.
However Mr Moi is expected to employ his considerable political wiles to break up the alliance in the coming weeks.
And although NARC rhetoric is strong on corruption and mismanagement, some of its top members have chequered records containing allegations of both.