Moi legacy hinders Kenyatta junior in race for presidency

Two gleaming helicopters swoop from the morning sky and touch down in a football field. The crowd scatters, a door swings open and out hops Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's beaming young presidential contender.

He cuts through the crowd with confident charm, a hearty handshake here, a quip there, an impromptu swing of the hips with the dancing ladies. The people, mostly poor peasants, roar with approval. They like the message too: fresh leaders, no corruption and jobs, jobs, jobs.

Kenya's biggest election in a generation is next Friday and Mr Kenyatta – whose first name means "freedom" – looks tailor-made for the job. As son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's independence leader and first president, he has an almost royal pedigree. At 42, he is a youthful pup beside his rival, Mwai Kibaki, who is 71. And he can run a profitable business, apparently without cheating.

So why, then, is he predicted to get a drubbing at the 27 December election? The latest poll shows Mwai Kibaki, leader of the opposition National Rainbow Coalition, has 68 per cent of the vote. Mr Kenyatta is 47 points behind. The poison touch comes from his powerful sponsor, the outgoing President Daniel arap Moi. After 24 years of Moi rule, Kenya is crumbling. The economy is flattened, Aids is killing one person in 10 and the nation has acquired a reputation for corruption. Now Kenyans desperately want Mr Moi to go, and to take his chosen successor, Mr Kenyatta, with him. Uhuru, as he is popularly known, is fighting back. For the past month he has engaged in a frantic election whirl from the coffee-rich highlands to the northern deserts.

Mr Moi, 78, has been conspicuously absent. Mr Kenyatta, sitting in the back porch of a country mansion owned by Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya's vice-president and his running mate, says: "I've insisted on doing my own business. That's the only way people can know who you are."

The polls were rubbish, he said, and the struggle against rainbow "euphoria" was winning. When asked about victory he said with a hint of hesitation: "I'm quite bullish. Definitely". Undoubtedly, he is a refreshing breeze in the stale air of Kenyan politics. His frame is thin and gangly, his manner is friendly and pomp-free, his diction peppered with slang. In private he chain-smokes; at rallies he swaps text-message jokes with friends.

He admits the country is a shambles. If elected, he promises to bring in a dynamic team of young professionals to run the Government. But many Kenyans are cynical that he can purge Kanu, the party that has ruled since 1963, of its dead wood and corruption. "Uhuru might be okay," said James Njenga, a Nairobi mechanic. "But after 40 years, we cannot trust Kanu with anything." That deep-seated enmity is sticking to Uhuru like a bad smell. This week he was in opposition territory in west Kenya but had to stick to small rallies in rural centres. The last time he tried towns, excited youths threw stones at his motorcade.

And he has not managed a complete break with Kanu's ugly past. In the shadows of his campaign are Nicolas Biwott, a much-feared, Svengali-like Moi confidante, and Julius Sunkuli, a senior minister once embroiled in a rape scandal. His corruption credentials have also been questioned.

In recent weeks, the national treasury hastily paid out £36m for public works contracts. Local papers say some contracts are unfinished, others never existed and many "contractors" are linked to the Moi government. Other reports suggest pilfered funds are helping fund the Uhuru campaign, a suggestion Mr Kenyatta dismisses as "complete rubbish".

But there is certainly some small-scale bribery. On Wednesday, a crowd waited for him until darkness, but he failed to appear. By then the villagers had started their own dance. But before returning home, they demanded the 200 shillings (£1.60) they were promised for attending. "I'm a pragmatist," Mr Kenyatta said. "I know these things happen. But this is a young democracy. The challenge is poverty, not politics."

He has just six days to close the gap on Mr Kibaki, who is confined to a chair after a road accident. The polls could be wrong and a surge in support is possible. If feared vote-rigging materialises, it will probably favour Mr Kenyatta. But the gap is wide, time is running out and the Moi factor will not go away.