William Ruto hails Queen Elizabeth's 'admirable' Commonwealth leadership
Queen Elizabeth II.
President-elect William Ruto has hailed Queen Elizabeth's "admirable" leadership of the Commonwealth, paying tribute to the former monarch following her death aged 96.
"May her memories continue to inspire us. We join the Commonwealth in mourning and offer our condolences to the Royal Family and the United Kingdom," said Dr Ruto, who will become Kenya's fifth president.
"She steered the institution's evolution into a forum for effective multilateral engagement," Ruto said on Twitter, describing the bloc as a testament to the queen's "historic legacy".
Elizabeth, then a princess, was on a visit to Kenya in February 1952 when she received news of her father's death while staying at the Treetops hotel, a remote game-watching lodge in the Aberdare forest.
Kenya, then a British colony, was the first stop on the tour of the Commonwealth she had embarked on with her husband, Prince Philip, in place of her ill father.
It was during their night at the Treetops hotel that Elizabeth would become queen.
The royal visit -- and the legend to go with it -- made Treetops among the most famous hotels in the world.
Two decades after Kenya declared independence from Britain, the queen returned to the country on the invitation of then president Daniel arap Moi.
