It has been a remarkable week in Kenya. Only one year ago, Daniel arapMoi, the unpopular president of 24 years, had an iron grip on power. It wasn't clear if he was going to ever let go. Then last Monday, all that changed.
A euphoric crowd of more than 200,000 people squeezed into Nairobi's Uhuru Park to watch the 78-year-old autocrat step down. They greeted him with naked hostility.
His motorcade was pelted with clods of mud and shouts of "thief!" Up on the dais, the steely faced leader endured boos, whistles and chants of "Without Moi everything is possible".
And then, after a simple ceremony to pass power to his rival, Mwai Kibaki, he quietly left. Kenya's voters had spoken.
It was an inglorious coda to 24 years of rule by one of Africa's most enduring "Big Men", but Kenya's election made history. By holding the most peaceful, orderly poll for a decade - with the possible exception of South Africa in 1994 - Kenya has set a new democratic standard for much of the continent.
And for journalists like this one, who report mostly on Africa's woes - the starving children, killer volcanoes or any number of wars - it was a sparkling good news story.
Nobody is sure why Moi went so easily. Unlike Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, he didn't wait for the roar of the crowd or the gunman's bullet. Perhaps it was the blinkered megalomania which infects those who rule for too long.
Or maybe, faced with the tidal wave of his own unpopularity, the old man simply decided it was time to go and Kenyan voters, in a display of exemplary calm and political sophistication, agreed.
Kenya's peaceful transition sounds a bright note at the end of a terrible year for African democracy. In Madagascar the opposition won elections but power only passed after a protracted crisis. Ivory Coast - until recently seen as an oasis of stability - has exploded into a bloody civil war.
The day after Kibaki was inaugurated, Africa's longest serving "Big Man" - Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema, who first came to power in a 1967 coup - twisted the constitution to allow another term of office. The species of "president for life", previously thought extinct, is rising again.
For me, the sharpest disappointment was Zimbabwe. I couldn't help comparing Kenya's peaceful rallies and orderly polling stations with the travesties which Robert Mugabe likes to pretend are elections. I thought of Lovemore, a 22-year-old in Bulawayo who had was beaten to a pulp, half-drowned and viciously interrogated by Mugabe's thugs who had accused him of supporting the opposition.
I thought of the old man whose voice quivered, so afraid was he to speak outside his mind outside a polling station, and I thought of the race-hate and conspiracy rhetoric of Mugabe's men. "Ah yes, you Irish," one Zanu-PF nasty told me before the rigged poll. "I hear that you are siding with the British now to get us out."
Daniel arap Moi also has an unsavoury reputation. A failed military coup in 1982 sparked one-party rule and systematic repression. Critical journalists found themselves flung from fourth-floor windows and muffled screams emanated from the torture centres in Nyayo House, the immigration building.
In the past decade, Kenya has become a far more open society. Under pressure from western allies, Moi allowed multi-party politics in 1992. The free press became bold and outspoken and recent years even saw Scratch Saturday-style satire shows. But his enduring crime - the one Kenyans cannot forgive - is the slide into abject poverty.
Just down the hill from his Nairobi mansion lies Kibera, Africa's second largest slum. It's hard to describe the wretchedness of conditions for its 800,00 inhabitants. There are few toilets, so at night adults squat in the dim alleyways to relieve themselves. There is little work so many drink changaa, a bitter moonshine which costs 13 cents a cup but can cause blindness, all day.
Just before Christmas I met Jeremiah, a stocky smiling man who lives in a pokey shack at the end of a mucky alley. He earns €33 a month for working an 84-hour week as a night watchman. Most of the money is sent back to his family, who live in a distant village.
Kanu didn't go without deploying its usual dirty tricks. In the run-up to the election, bribes were paid to voters. A stream of pro-Kanu propaganda went out on KBC. There were even attempts to stir up the tribal passions which marred the 1992 and 1997 elections.
This time, however, the tricks failed.
Kenyan voters refused to be manipulated. Many turned out to Kanu rallies, cheered and took the money handouts. However post-poll analysis shows that in the quiet of the booth, they were mulling the link between the Mercedes-driving politicians and their own poverty. So they voted them out.
Now Mwai Kibaki has assumed messianic status among Kenyans desperate for change. Inevitably, they will be disappointed.
The new government faces a mammoth task, with the economy in disrepair. Kibaki's team is no coalition of angels - many of his top lieutenants are former Kanu hardmen who jumped from a sinking ship to the opposition only recently.
The achievement of Kenya's election is to shift power peacefully from the entrenched elite to a democratically chosen opposition. Whether it will lead to real change is a different question - one which now faces Mr Kibaki.
declan@nbi.ispkenya.com