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RAILA ODINGA: Veteran Kenyan oppositionist vies again

 

To stop the killings, international mediators forced a deal that saw the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, continue as president with Odinga taking the specially-created position of prime minister in a power-sharing government.

He held the post until 2013 when he ran for president, losing to Kenyatta by a very narrow margin and then losing his court challenge of the result.

A decade on, the violence of 2007 looms over Kenya’s politics, throwing fuel onto the smouldering fire of tribal resentment.

Many Luos believe they — through Odinga — are being denied political power by a cabal of Kikuyu elites currently led by Kenyatta.

In rallies and public statements Odinga has said he is “poised for an outright win”, accused Kenyatta of seeking to rig the election and called on his supporters to “protect our vote” — a barely-veiled threat to take to the streets if they don’t like the result.

– A polarising politician –

Supporters regard Odinga as a much-needed social reformer, while detractors say he is a rabble-rousing populist unafraid to play the tribal card.

Renowned as a firebrand speaker able to galvanise a crowd with his growling oratory, Odinga, described as stubborn and sometimes short-tempered, seems to have lost a bit of his rallying skills with some attributing the change to ill-health and advancing years.

With speech notes in hand he often stumbles and labours his words — especially in English — but speaking off-the-cuff and in his native Swahili he retains the ability to inspire.

Married, Odinga has three surviving children: Rosemary, Raila Junior and Winnie.

Odinga grew up an Anglican and later converted to evangelicalism, being baptised in a Nairobi swimming pool by a self-proclaimed prophet in 2009.

He studied engineering in communist former East Germany, and he named his eldest son Fidel, who died in 2015, after the Cuban revolutionary.

However, observers say the “socialist” and “communist” labels he was given were more an attempt to discredit him by the Moi regime than an accurate reflection of his leanings.

After returning to Kenya in 1970 Odinga set up as a businessman before following his father into politics.

Nowadays he describes himself as a social democrat who wants to fight inequality.

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