While other African states are turning away from the United States out of disappointment with democracy or lured by rival powers, Kenyan President William Ruto is arriving in Washington on Wednesday for a three-day state visit during which he wants to present himself as a loyal ally of the United States on the continent.

A flood of military coupsShaky elections and raging wars have turned Africa’s political landscape upside down over the past year and American rivals like Russia and China, but also the destruction of Washington’s main selling point: that democracy works.

In Niger, a recently installed military junta has called on American troops to withdrawRelations with once solid American allies such as South Africa and Ethiopia are extremely cool. recent elections in Senegallong regarded as a symbol of stability, almost out of control.

The Biden administration hopes that Mr Ruto is the antidote to these problems.

Since coming to power two years ago, Ruto, 57, has brought Kenya, East Africa’s economic powerhouse, ever closer to the United States. His visit is only the sixth state visit by the Biden administration and the first by an African president since 2008.

In some ways, President Biden is making up for a broken promise. At a high-level Africa summit in Washington in December 2022, Biden declared his full commitment to Africa and promised to visit the continent the following year. However, the trip never materialized.

By choosing Mr Ruto, the Biden administration confirms that it views the Kenyan president as one of its closest security, diplomatic and economic partners in Africa.

The two countries are working closely together to fight militant groups in Somalia, including the Al-Shabab militia. American corporations such as Google have sizable offices in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, which is also a center of diplomatic efforts to end the chaos in neighboring countries such as Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kenya is expected to soon deploy 1,000 paramilitary police to quell unrest in Haiti. dangerous mission The plan is largely funded by the United States and carries significant political risks for Mr Ruto if Kenyan personnel are injured or killed.

And Mr Ruto has skilfully secured America’s support with his outspoken advocacy on global issues such as debt relief, reform of international financial institutions and climate change, as he seeks to build a reputation as Africa’s leading statesman.

“We are experiencing the nightmare of climate change every day,” he said in an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, a few hours before flying to the United States. Nearly 300 Kenyans died last month when heavy rains lashed the countryand caused floods that displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

“One year ago, we had a severe drought,” he said during the interview in an open pavilion next to State House, his official residence in Nairobi, as thunder rumbled and rain grew. “This is the case in many countries on the continent.”

It was not many years ago that Mr Ruto was seen as part of the problem in Kenya. A decade ago he was before the International Criminal Courtwho is accused of orchestrating the post-election violence that left more than 1,100 Kenyans dead. His lawyer at the trial was Karim Khan, the court’s current prosecutor. The United States supported the prosecution, seeing it as an opportunity to end impunity in Kenya’s political class.

But the trial collapsed in 2016 after witnesses disappeared or changed their statements, and Mr Ruto’s electoral successes overshadowed those of the trial at home: he was elected vice president in 2013 and 2018 and president in 2022.

“So much has been said in this episode about who we are,” he said, referring to former President Uhuru Kenyatta, who faced similar allegations. “But don’t you notice that we were ultimately elected by the same people we allegedly harmed? That tells you the whole story was false.”

An American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Mr. Ruto was privately urged at the start of his visit to indirectly address what he called his “ICC hangover.” In his first speech on Monday at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library in Atlanta, he vowed to keep Kenya “on the path of an open society that is strongly committed to greater accountability and transparency and is highly inclusive of civil society.”

Mr Ruto, too, needs the travel to succeed. While he has made about 50 trips abroad since 2022 to drum up support for his ideas, his popularity at home has plummeted. Facing a crippling debt crisis – Kenya owes about $77 billion – Mr Ruto implemented tax hikes that sparked cries of protest from his citizens.

Some Kenyans call him “Zakayo,” after the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus. The reference makes him smile. “I have been very open with the people of Kenya that I cannot continue to borrow money,” he said, predicting that he would eventually win over his critics.

But time is running out, and Ruto’s big idea for economic turnaround is to ride the green energy wave. Over 90 percent of Kenya’s energy comes from renewable sources – mainly wind and geothermal – a natural advantage that Ruto wants to use to transform Kenya into an industrial powerhouse.

He wants foreign companies to move to Kenya, where their products would be carbon neutral. He also portrays Kenya as a huge carbon sink, taking advantage of the emerging industry that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere and then buries it deep in the rock formations of the Rift Valley.

“How can we transform Africa from a continent of potential to a continent of opportunity and ultimately a continent of investment?” he asked. Last month, Microsoft and two other companies announced They built a 1-gigawatt data center powered by renewable energy in Naivasha, 40 miles northwest of Nairobi.

Yet Ruto’s commitment to Washington and democracy is not universally popular in Africa. Disappointment with sham elections and corrupt elites has fueled youth support for recent military coups in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

“There is a perception that democracy has delivered nothing and that the elites who came to power through elections have delivered nothing,” said Murithi Mutiga, Africa director of the International Crisis Group. However, Kenya’s example of stability and steady growth shows that while democracy can be “chaotic, difficult, noisy and tough,” it still works, he added.

Mr Ruto is expected to spend most of Wednesday with members of Congress. On Thursday he will lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery before meeting with Mr Biden and attending a state dinner at the White House. The pomp and prestige are a great reward for a first-term president who critics accuse of having a strong authoritarian streak.

Last year, Ruto publicly attacked judges whose rulings hampered his policies, raising renewed fears that he could ultimately lead Kenya down an authoritarian path.

And like other African heads of state, he is not afraid to enter the field of foreign candidates.

Last year, to the dismay of the Americans, Mr Ruto received Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday and Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov of Russia. In October, Mr Ruto flew to Beijing for a three-day state visit.

Mr Ruto rejected the suggestion that he was a darling of the West or anyone else.

“This is not about taking sides,” he said. “It’s about interests. There is absolutely no contradiction in working with different countries. It’s just common sense.”