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Independence: from AD 1963

Jomo Kenyatta is still in detention in 1960, but his colleagues elect him president of their newly formed political party KANU (Kenya African National Union). He is released by the British in 1961. In London in 1962 he leads Kenya’s delegation in the negotiations for independence. The new nation is to include the coastal strip which until this time has been leased from the sultan of Zanzibar.

In elections in May 1963 KANU wins the majority of the seats. Independence is achieved in December 1963, with Kenyatta as prime minister. A year later, under a new constitution, Kenya becomes a republic (soon to be a one-party republic, when opposition leaders agree to end party faction and cooperate with KANU). In 1964 Kenyatta is elected president.

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To many in the white community it seems a terrifying prospect that almost unfettered power is now in the hands of a politician widely held responsible for Kikuyu violence in the Mau Mau period (not to mention his having spent two years at Moscow University during the 1930s).

But Kenyatta confounds his critics. He rules even-handedly in relation to the African, Asian and European communities. He carefully involves ministers from tribes other than the Kikuyu in his administration. And he develops a successful free-market economy open to foreign investment. When he dies, in 1978, Kenya ranks high among African countries both in terms of political stability and economic growth.