The Guardian. Controversy as Kenya salutes Uhuru Kenyatta as new leader

Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, astonished diplomats at a ceremony to inaugurate Uhuru Kenyatta as Kenya's new leader when he accused the international criminal court of blackmail, incompetence and self-interest in charging Kenyatta with crimes against humanity.

The inauguration, in a grandiose ceremony on the outskirts of Nairobi, made history, marking the first time an ICC indictee had been made head of state. Kenyatta and his new vice-president, William Ruto, are both due to stand trial at the court for crimes against humanity.

Kenyatta and Ruto's Jubilee Alliance has cultivated an anti-imperialist sentiment among Kenyans in recent months in the face of the ICC's charges. When President Museveni spoke on behalf of official guests at the event, the masses in attendance responded to his upbraiding of the ICC and the United Nations with whoops and applause. The outgoing president, Mwai Kibaki, referred to Kenyatta and Ruto as Kenya's "dynamic duo".

Not all Kenyans were celebrating, however. Workers at a hairdressing salon in Karen, a leafy suburb that has become a favourite with Kenya's political class, were divided. The female staff, all members of Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe, sat at the back by the basins, clapping their hands in glee as they watched their new leader hold his freshly inked oath up for the cameras like a child with a certificate at sports day. Hairdresser Jack Konah, meanwhile, sat beneath the television with the non-Kikuyus, all male, bemoaning impunity and negative ethnicity. "That's what's killing Kenya," he said. The few customers that came in had their hair cut by stylists who kept one eye on the television screen.

Sitting with one of her two children, Rosa Wanjiru Ngaru, 33, had a different view. "If Kenyans had the confidence to vote for this guy, then he cannot have done anything bad," she said, watching Kenyatta, in immaculate navy suit, white shirt and red tie, being presented with a sword and a bound copy of Kenya's new constitution, the symbolic instruments of power and authority.