Raila Odinga set on Kenya's top job
2013-03-01 11:07
Nairobi - At 68, Raila Odinga, Kenya's prime minister
and historical opposition leader, is having his third and likely final stab at
the country's top job.
The presidential aspirant, a Luo from the western region of
Nyanza who likes to say he was "born into politics" is optimistic
that he can win straight out in the first round.
Odinga, often known rather by his first name Raila to
distinguish him from his father Jaramogi, a prominent post-independence
political figure, and his brother Oburu, a member of parliament, has pursued
his political ambitions undeterred by beatings, persecution, exile and several
spells in jail.
"He's never finished," said political analyst
Mutahi Ngunyi. "Even when everything seems to be going against him, he
pulls a rabbit out of his hat and reinvents himself."
In all, Odinga spent almost eight years in jail without
trial before briefly being granted political asylum in Norway at the beginning
of the 1990s.
His admirers point to the fact that while most Kenyan
politicians have their constituency in the town where they were born, Odinga is
an exception, being a Nairobi MP.
"Raila is a Luo without question, but he is
instinctively and ideologically a genuine nationalist as well," one
advisor says.
On the walls of his suite of offices, portraits of himself,
his father, and anti-colonial rebel leader Dedan Kimathi jostle for space with
the pictures that late conservationist Joy Adamson painted of the different
tribes of Kenya.
Odinga was a contender in the 1997 elections where he came
third after Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, now the outgoing president.
Stubborn and short-tempered
In 2002 he backed Kibaki, who won. In 2007 he ran again,
against Kibaki this time, and lost, whereupon his supporters accused Kibaki of
having rigged the results.
Daniel Branch, an academic and the author of a book on
Kenya's recent history, says Odinga sees the March 4 poll as an opportunity to
make up for the injustice of the last elections.
"Odinga is no doubt motivated by a desire to right what
he sees as the injustice of 2007, when he and his supporters think he won the
presidential vote," Branch told AFP.
Long renowned as a firebrand speaker able to galvanise any
crowd, Odinga, described as stubborn and sometimes short-tempered, has lost
some of his skills as an orator.
Some attribute the change to ill-health that started to take
hold in 2006; others say it started when he became prime minister in 2008.
Once he became prime minister, "he could no longer
criticise things that were wrong in government without having to do something
about them," one of his advisors told AFP.
His energy has also waned - on at least two occasions
recently he has been seen almost nodding off during an interview.
However his advisors point out that his pre-election
schedule is so gruelling it would exhaust a much younger candidate.
"He's reached an age where he's starting to get tired,
and then you have to look at his hectic schedule," said Mwalimu Mati, a
prominent civil society figure and anti-corruption campaigner.
Odinga has also dropped some of his more colourful touches
such as showing up at rallies in a red Hummer.
Food, education and jobs
Married to Ida, Odinga has four children: Fidel, Winnie,
Rosemary and Raila Junior.
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 the former east Germany, in
Magdeburg and Leipzig, and he called his oldest son Fidel 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.
In a recent interview he reminded AFP that he is a
businessman. Somewhat controversially he launched his petroleum import company
when he was energy minister in 2001 under Daniel arap Moi.
Odinga has "accumulated" wealth during his time in
politics says anti-graft campaigner Mati, "but not on the same scale as
Uhuru Kenyatta", his main rival in the race.
If he wins, Odinga told AFP he would prioritise "food,
education and jobs" and that he wanted to make Kenya self-sufficient in
food production.
He also promised that if elected he would cut the salary of
the president and the vice president, but had to admit somewhat weakly he could
not remember by what percentage.
In the days of the Cold War, his father Jaramogi's closeness
to the Soviet Union worried observers.
Raila, however, is seen largely favourably by the
international community, particularly since his main rival Uhuru Kenyatta faces
a crimes against humanity trial by the International Criminal Court.
- SAPA
