Raila Odinga, in full Raila Amolo Odinga, (born January
7, 1945, Maseno, Kenya), Kenyan businessman and politician who served as prime
minister of Kenya (2008–13) following the contentious presidential election of
December 2007.
A Luo descent, Odinga was the son of Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, the first vice president of independent Kenya. After earning a master’s
degree in mechanical engineering in East Germany in 1970, Odinga returned to
Kenya to become a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. During his time at the
university, Odinga also engaged in engineering-related business ventures,
including one that would later become East African Spectre, Ltd. He left the
university in 1974 and was soon employed by the Kenya Bureau of Standards,
where he attained the position of deputy director in 1978.
In the 1970s and ’80s Odinga was politically active and
supported government reforms in Kenya. In 1982 he was accused of plotting
against Pres. Daniel arap Moi and was imprisoned without trial for six years.
After Odinga’s release, he was twice arrested for campaigning against one-party
rule, and in 1991 he sought refuge in Norway. He returned to Kenya in 1992,
however, and was elected a member of the National Assembly that year under the
banner of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy–Kenya (FORD–K), the party
led by his father. After his father’s death in 1994, Odinga became embroiled in
a leadership struggle within the party and in 1996 left FORD–K and joined the
National Development Party (NDP).
In 1997 Odinga stood unsuccessfully as the NDP’s
candidate for election as president of Kenya but was able to retain his seat in
the National Assembly. He and the NDP thereafter gave their support to Moi and
the ruling Kikuyu-dominated Kenya African National Union (KANU). Odinga joined
Moi’s cabinet as energy minister in 2001, and the NDP was absorbed into the
ruling party the following year, with Odinga becoming secretary-general of
KANU.
Odinga’s hope of succeeding Moi as KANU’s candidate for
the presidency in the 2002 elections was shattered when Moi called upon the
party to support Uhuru Kenyatta, son of former president Jomo Kenyatta. Several
KANU members, including Odinga, formed the Rainbow Alliance within the party in
protest of the choice, and they instead advocated for a vote among KANU members
to determine the party’s presidential candidate. Their pleas went unheeded, and
KANU officially named Kenyatta as its candidate a few months later; in
response, Odinga and the Rainbow Alliance left KANU and formed the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP).
The LDP soon joined with a coalition of several parties,
the National Alliance of Kenya (NAK), to form the National Rainbow Coalition
(NARC) under the leadership of former vice president Mwai Kibaki, himself a
Kikuyu. Although terms of agreement between the LDP and NAK were not completely
revealed to the public, the two parties reportedly promised to equitably share
cabinet posts and power—including naming Odinga to the new, strong prime
minister post that would be created—if Kibaki were elected president. NARC’s
efforts to challenge KANU were successful, and Kibaki was elected president in
December 2002, the first non-KANU president in independent Kenya’s history.
NARC candidates (including Odinga) won more than half of the seats in the
National Assembly.
As one of the NARC leaders, Odinga had played a
significant role in securing the election of Kibaki, campaigning relentlessly
on his behalf after the presidential candidate was seriously injured in a car
accident in the month leading up to the polls. After his election, Kibaki
appointed Odinga as minister of roads, public works, and housing, but the LDP
soon accused Kibaki of reneging on the preelection agreement between the LDP
and NAK that promised to share cabinet posts and power more equitably between
the two parties. Tensions between the two NARC factions further increased over
several issues discussed at the country’s constitutional review conference in
the spring of 2003, including the proposal to create a strong prime minister position,
which Kibaki and his supporters now backtracked from. Eventually a draft
constitution supported by Kibaki that provided for a weak prime minister and a
strong president was presented to the public in a referendum vote in November
2005. It was not approved, however, as Odinga successfully led a campaign
against it. Soon after, Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet and reconstituted
it the next month, without Odinga or many of the former cabinet members who
supported Odinga.
Problems between the LDP and NAK continued, leading to
the collapse of the NARC coalition in 2006. Meanwhile, Odinga had already
formed a new coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). In the months
prior to the 2007 presidential and legislative elections, Kibaki formed his own
coalition, the Party of National Unity (PNU). During the campaign, Odinga
sought to dispel the perceived grievances of some western Kenyan ethnic groups
by denouncing corruption in high places and by campaigning for a fairer
distribution of land and the devolvement of power to largely single-ethnic
district councils.
The ODM won a resounding majority in the December 2007
legislative election. The provisional results of the presidential election
indicated that Odinga would be victorious as well. However, when the final
election results were released after a delay, Kibaki was declared the winner by
a narrow margin. Odinga immediately disputed the outcome, and international
observers questioned the validity of the final results. Widespread protests
ensued throughout the country and degenerated into horrific acts of violence
involving some of Kenya’s many ethnic groups, most notable of which were the
Kikuyu and the Luo. More than 1,000 people were killed and more than 600,000
were displaced in the election’s violent aftermath.
In February 2008 former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan
and Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania and chairman of the African Union,
brokered an agreement between Kibaki and Odinga for the PNU and the ODM to form
a coalition government. This led to Odinga’s being sworn in on April 17, 2008,
to the newly created post of prime minister under Kibaki’s presidency and with
a power-sharing cabinet. Tensions within the new government soon appeared,
however, and Odinga had only limited success with implementing his
reform-oriented agenda. In 2009 Odinga complained that ODM cabinet ministers
were not being included in decision-making discussions, and that led him to
boycott cabinet meetings for a time. Another row erupted in early 2010 when
Odinga’s decision to suspend two ministers over allegations of corruption was blocked
by Kibaki. Later that year, however, Odinga campaigned with Kibaki in favour of
a new constitution that counted among its many changes a devolution of power to
the local level of government; it was approved via referendum and promulgated
in August.
In the run-up to the 2013 elections, Odinga’s ODM formed
the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) alliance with Kenyan Vice Pres.
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement and other parties. Under
the CORD banner, Odinga and Musyoka campaigned for the posts of president and
vice president, respectively. Among the eight presidential candidates, Odinga
and Kenyatta—this time representing the Jubilee Coalition—were front-runners
going into the March 4 election, which transpired with relative calm. After a
delay in the release of the final results, due to problems with the
vote-tallying process, electoral officials announced that Odinga received 43.31
percent of the vote, placing second to Kenyatta, who was declared the winner
with 50.07 percent of the vote—just enough to avoid a second round of voting.
Odinga did not at first concede. Citing what he maintained were many
irregularities with the election, he filed a challenge to the results with the
Supreme Court but promised to respect the court’s decision. The court ultimately
upheld the election results, and Odinga conceded.
2017
elections
Odinga remained politically active. In the prelude to
the 2017 elections, Odinga’s ODM party and the other parties that were
previously part of the CORD coalition allied with more parties to form the
National Super Alliance (NASA). The new alliance backed Odinga for president and
Musyoka for deputy president to stand in the upcoming elections. The run-up to
the elections was tense and filled with heated rhetoric, particularly from NASA
and Pres. Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party. NASA made repeated claims that the
Jubilee-led government would try to rig the elections.
The elections were held on August 8, 2017, and were
generally peaceful. Before the results were announced, however, Odinga and
other NASA members alleged that electoral irregularities had taken place and
that the server of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)
had been hacked and called the election a charade. When the results were
released a few days later, the IEBC announced that Kenyatta won the election
with more than 54 percent of the vote and that Odinga trailed him with almost
45 percent.
Although most observers declared the elections to be
free and fair, Odinga and NASA continued to allege that the results of the
presidential election had been manipulated, and some civil society groups
expressed concerns about the electoral process as well. On August 18, Odinga
and NASA, despite having previously said that they would not take their dispute
to the Supreme Court, did file a petition with that body. They requested that
the presidential election be nullified on the basis that it was “fatally
compromised” and asked that a new election be held. The Supreme Court’s
decision, announced on September 1, agreed with Odinga and NASA that
irregularities had marred the presidential election. Declaring that the election
had not been conducted in a manner consistent with the terms dictated by the
constitution, the court annulled the results and ordered a new election to be
held within 60 days. The Supreme Court’s decision shocked many, but Odinga
praised it, saying, “For the first time in the history of African
democratisation, a ruling has been made by a court nullifying irregular
elections of a president.”
A new election, originally scheduled for October 17 by
the IEBC, was later slated for October 26 to allow the commission more time to
prepare for it. The rescheduling came on the heels of the September 20 release
of the Supreme Court’s detailed ruling on why it had annulled the results of
the August 8 election. The ruling faulted the actions of the IEBC and cited
many problems with the vote tallying and transmission process.
On September 12 NASA had issued a list of what it deemed
to be “irreducible minimums”—problems from the last election that the IEBC
would have to correct before NASA would participate in the new election. After
various attempts at meeting with the IEBC to work through the issues, Odinga
and NASA threatened to pull out of the new presidential election if changes
were not made to correct the problems cited in the court’s ruling and their
list. NASA also held regular demonstrations in front of the IEBC headquarters
and other areas in an attempt to pressure the body to make the requested
changes. The IEBC responded by noting that some changes had been made but
others would not be, because of reasons such as binding contracts with various
suppliers and the limited time frame it had to work within.
In the meantime, the Jubilee-dominated National Assembly
fast-tracked two controversial election-related amendments that contained items
such as allowing a candidate to automatically be declared the winner of a
contested post if the other candidate withdrew from an election and limiting
the court’s ability to void an election. NASA vehemently disagreed with the
amendments and protested against them; the amendments, which became law in
November, were also criticized by the international community.
On October 10, Odinga announced that he was withdrawing
from the October 26 election rerun because he did not believe that the IEBC had
done enough to address NASA’s concerns about the upcoming election. Based on a
ruling made by the Supreme Court in 2013, NASA and Odinga believed that the
IEBC would, after his withdrawal, now need to cancel the election and prepare
for fresh elections within 90 days—thereby giving the commission more time to
make the requested reforms that it so far had not. Kenyatta, however, declared
that the October 26 election would still take place and, based on other legal
consideration, the IEBC seemed to agree. A week later the election’s future was
again called into question when one of the IEBC commissioners fled the country
and resigned, stating that the commission was too politicized and would be
unable to provide a credible election; she also noted that her life had been
threatened because of her position on the commission. The IEBC head soon
concurred with her assessment that a credible election could not be guaranteed.
A last-minute hearing at the Supreme Court to stop the
election failed to take place because only two of the court’s seven judges came
to work that day—short of the necessary quorum—and the election proceeded as
planned. Kenyatta was declared the winner, having won about 98 percent of the
vote, although his victory was marred by Odinga’s withdrawal from the race and
the NASA-led boycott of the polls, which led to a low turnout rate of about 39
percent. Security issues also prevented polls from taking place in some
NASA-dominated constituencies.
Odinga denounced the election as a sham and repeated his
call for a fresh election to be held in 90 days. He also announced various
plans for the future, including a campaign of economic boycotts and peaceful
demonstrations to support his demand for a fresh election, as well as the
creation of two bodies, a People’s Assembly and a think tank. The former was to
include representatives from various civil, religious, and business sectors
that would assemble to discuss the important issues facing Kenyans, and the
latter would identify and try to reform some government-related problems. The
resistance arm of NASA—the National Resistance Movement (NRM), which would lead
the campaign of civil disobedience and economic boycotts—had been launched the
day before the October 2017 election.
In late January 2018 NASA released what it said were the
“real” results from the August 2017 polls, which showed that Odinga had won
with some 8.1 million votes—enough to put him over the 50 percent threshold
necessary to avoid a runoff election—while Kenyatta received about 7.8 million;
the IEBC disputed NASA’s claims. On the basis of NASA’s version of the election
results, Odinga was sworn in as the “people’s president” of Kenya on January
30, 2018, at a rally attended by thousands of NASA supporters. Later that day
the government declared the NRM a criminal group, which left NRM members
vulnerable to arrest. Some were arrested in the following days, such as Miguna
Miguna, who called himself the general of the NRM; he was later charged with
having committed treason-related offenses for having taken part in Odinga’s
self-styled inaugural ceremony.
More striking than Odinga controversially holding his
own inauguration was the Kenyan government’s heavy-handed attempts at
preventing media coverage of the event. Prior to the day of Odinga’s symbolic
inauguration, the government warned media outlets not to broadcast it; this
warning, however, was largely ignored. On the morning of January 30,
independent radio and television stations planning to cover Odinga’s
swearing-in were forced off the air by authorities, although some media outlets
were able to stream the event over the Internet.
Rapprochement
with Kenyatta
In a surprising turn of events, Odinga and Kenyatta
reconciled shortly thereafter, appearing together in early March 2018 and
grasping hands—an act that became popularly referred to as “the handshake” as
well as viewed as a symbol of bipartisanship. Odinga went on to work with
Kenyatta on the Building Bridges Initiative, a task force that met with
citizens from all walks of life in Kenya to identify some of the country’s
greatest challenges and then recommend solutions to address the problems. The
task force released its report in November 2019. Among the recommendations were
several that intended to provide for greater power sharing among the many
ethnic groups in the country. The recommendations were adopted into a
constitutional amendment bill, which was passed by both houses of parliament in
May 2021. Before it could be put to a public referendum, however, the
constitutionality of the amendment bill was challenged in the courts.
2022
election
In December 2021 Odinga formally declared his candidacy
for president in the 2022 election. He was running as the candidate of the
Azimio la Umoja alliance, which had been formed in preparation for the election
and included the ODM as well as Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party. Odinga was officially
endorsed by the ODM as well as by Kenyatta and the ruling Jubilee Party in
February 2022.
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