Nairobi, Sept 5 (AFP/APP): Raila Amolo Odinga has spent most of his adult life in politics, including eight years in prison as a pro-democracy campaigner, but despite five attempts has never achieved his goal of becoming Kenya’s president.
The 77-year-old on Monday lost his fifth bid for the top job as the Supreme Court dismissed his objections to the outcome of the August 9 poll, which awarded a narrow victory to Deputy President William Ruto.
Odinga has long cast himself as an anti-establishment firebrand, despite belonging to one of Kenya’s top political dynasties.
But his decision to strike an alliance with his arch-rival, President Uhuru Kenyatta, took the shine off his brand, enabling Ruto to paint himself as the champion for ordinary Kenyans struggling to survive in a country dominated by elites.
The Kenyatta and Odinga families have cast a long shadow over Kenyan politics since the country won independence from colonial ruler Britain in 1963.
Uhuru Kenyatta’s father Jomo was the East African nation’s first president, while his rival Jaramogi Oginga Odinga — Raila’s father — served as vice president.
Born on January 7, 1945, Odinga spent his early years in politics either in jail or in exile, fighting for democracy during the autocratic rule of president Daniel arap Moi.
A member of the Luo tribe, he entered parliament in 1992 and ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 1997, 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2022, claiming to have been cheated of victory in the last four elections.
The 2007 polls in particular — which many independent observers also considered deeply flawed — shocked Kenyan politics, unleashing ethnic violence that pitted the Luo and Kalenjin tribes against the Kikuyu community, costing more than 1,100 lives?
Few therefore expected Odinga and Kenyatta — a Kikuyu — to shake hands and draw a line under decades of vitriol in March 2018, effectively leaving Kenya without an opposition.
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