The beguiling politician who only struck at the opportune time

Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki. 1970. [File, Standard] 

When Mwai Kibaki, a promising economist, quit a teaching job at Makerere University in 1960 and returned to Kenya, many thought he had made a terrible mistake. He did not look like a politician, his peers thought. This is the same mistake many of his contemporaries would make later in life and belatedly learn that they had underrated the man from Othaya.

Although many of his competitors regarded him as a fence-sitter because he rarely committed himself to controversial issues, behind the genial smile was a calculating politician who wore a deadpan face of a gambler, and in many instances outwitted his opponents.