Kenya: Ex-PM becomes opposition presidential candidate

By Magdalene Mukami and Andrew Wasike.

Nairobi

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), was designated as the opposition candidate to face President Uhuru Kenyatta in the Aug. 8 election.

In a political rally at Uhuru Park in Nairobi attended by thousands of people, Musalia Mudavadi, the mastermind behind the opposition alliance, known by the acronym NASA, made the announcement.

“We have come together as political parties, civil societies, business communities to take back our country,” Mudavadi told thousands of opposition supporters at Uhuru Park in Nairobi.

“It is a NASA that will restore decency and humility as social and governance virtues, this is a NASA that will put Kenya firmly back on the route to prosperity as the countries founding vision intended,” he added.

This will be the fourth time Odinga, 72, runs for president.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told his supporters in a separate event that the “power-sharing lineup [was] nothing more than a ploy to create jobs for its leading figures.”

“While they are lying to each other about prime minister and deputy prime minister positions which are not in the Constitution, we in the Jubilee Party are busy committed to entrenching democracy to develop the country,” Kenyatta said.

Recent Kenyan elections have been marred by killings, particularly in 2007 when dozens of men, women, and children were burned alive in a church and others were killed by machete-wielding gangs.