Raila Amolo Odinga (born 7 January 1945), also popularly known to his supporters as Agwambo (meaning the "Mysterious One"), Tinga, Baba, RAO, and Jakom ("Chairman") is a Kenyan politician. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Langata in 1992, served as Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002 and as Minister of Roads, Public Works, and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main opposition candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Following a violent post-electoral crisis, Odinga took office as Prime Minister in April 2008, serving as supervisor and coordinator of a national unity coalition government. He came in second in Kenya's 2013 presidential elections after garnering 5,340,546 votes which represented 43.28% of the total votes cast.[3] Son of first Vice President of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the family's origin in Kenya's Luo tribe has been a key to their political activity. Raila is commonly known by his first name due to coincidence: he was an MP at the same time as his father between 1992 and 1994. In Raila Odinga was a presidential contender in the 1997 elections, coming third after President Daniel arap Moi of KANU and Mwai Kibaki, the former president of Kenya and then a member of the Democratic Party. Odinga campaigned to run for president in the December 2007 elections on an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) ticket.
On 1 September 2007, Raila Odinga was elected as the presidential candidate of the ODM. He garnered significant support in the 2007 General Election. According to the electoral body at the time (the ECK), he garnered the majority of the votes in Rift Valley, Western, his native Nyanza and Coast. Kibaki on the other hand won majority votes in Nairobi (Capital), North Eastern province, Central province and Eastern province. This is available from the ECK records. Out of the 2007 elections, his party, ODM, got 99 out of 210 seats in the parliament, making the ODM the single largest party in parliament.
On 30 December 2007, the chairman of the Kenyan election commission declared Raila's opponent, incumbent president Kibaki, the winner of the presidential election by a margin of about 230,000 votes. Raila disputed the results, alleging fraud by the election commission but refused to adhere to the constitutional procedure and present an election petition before the courts. Most opinion polls had speculated that Odinga would defeat president Kibaki. Independent international observers have since stated that the poll was marred by irregularities favouring both PNU and ODM, especially at the final vote tallying stages.[4] Many ODM supporters across the country rioted against the announced election results.
Early life
Raila Odinga was born at Maseno Church Missionary Society Hospital, in Maseno, Kisumu District, Nyanza Province on 7 January 1945 to Mary Ajuma Odinga and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. His father served as the first Vice President of Kenya under President Jomo Kenyatta.[5] He went to Kisumu Union Primary School, Maranda Primary and Maranda High School where he stayed until 1962. He spent the next two years at the Herder Institut, a part of the philological faculty at the University of Leipzig in East Germany.[6] He received a scholarship that in 1965 sent him to the Technical School, Magdeburg (now a part of Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) in the GDR. In 1970, he graduated with an Msc (Masters of Science) in Mechanical Engineering. While studying in East Berlin during the Cold War, as a Kenyan he was able to visit West Berlin through the Checkpoint Charlie. When visiting West Berlin, he used to smuggle goods not available in East Berlin and bring them to his friends in East Berlin.[7]He returned to Kenya in 1970. In 1971 he established the Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre), a company manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders. In 1974, he was appointed group standards manager of the Kenya Bureau of Standards. In 1978 he was promoted to its Deputy Director, a post he held until his 1982 detention.[citation needed]
Detention
Raila was placed under house arrest for seven months after evidence pointing to himself and his late father Oginga Odinga collaborating with the plotters of a failed coup attempt against President Daniel arap Moi in 1982, in which hundreds of Kenyan citizens and thousands of rebel soldiers died. Several foreigners also lost their lives. Raila was later charged with treason and detained without trial for six years.[8]A biography released in July 2006 indicated that Raila was far more involved in the attempted coup than he had previously claimed. After its publication, some MPs called for Raila to be arrested and charged,[9] but the statute of limitations had already passed and, since the information was contained in a biography, Raila could not be said to have openly confessed his involvement.[10] His mother died in 1984, but it took the prison wardens two months to inform him of her death.[citation needed]
Released on 6 February 1988, he was rearrested in September 1988 for his involvement with human rights and pro-democracy activists[11] pressing for multi-party democracy in Kenya, which was then a one-party state. To his political followers, he is also referred as "Agwambo", the meaning of which is difficult to specify, or "Jakom", meaning Chairman.
Raila was released on 12 June 1989, only to be incarcerated again on 5 July 1990, together with Kenneth Matiba, and former Nairobi Mayor Charles Rubia.[12] Raila was released on 21 June 1991, and in October, he fled the country to Norway with a hint that the corrupt Kenyan government attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate him.[13]
Multi-party politics
At the time of Raila's departure to Norway, the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), a movement formed to agitate for the return of multi-party democracy to Kenya, was newly formed. In February 1992, Raila returned to join FORD, then led by his father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He was elected Vice Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the party. In the months running up to the 1992 General Election, FORD split into Ford Kenya, led by Raila's father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and FORD-Asili led by Kenneth Matiba. Raila became Ford-Kenya's Deputy Director of Elections. Raila won the Langata Constituency parliamentary seat, previously held by Philip Leakey of KANU. Raila became the second father of multi- party democracy in Kenya after Kenneth Matiba.[14]When Jaramogi Oginga Odinga died in January 1994, and Michael Wamalwa Kijana succeeded him as FORD-Kenya chairman, Raila challenged him for the party leadership. The elections were marred by controversy after which Raila resigned from FORD-Kenya to join the National Development Party (NDP). In the 1997 General Election, Raila finished third after President Moi, the incumbent, and Democratic Party candidate Mwai Kibaki. He retained his position as the Langata MP.[14]
After the election, Raila supported the Moi government, and led a merger between his party, NDP, and Moi's KANU party. He served in Moi's Cabinet as Energy Minister from June 2001 to 2002, during Moi's final term.
In the subsequent KANU elections held later that year, he was elected the party's secretary general (replacing J. J. Kamotho).[15][16] In 2002, the then President, Daniel Arap Moi, pulled a surprise by endorsing Uhuru Kenyatta – a son of Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta to be his successor. Moi publicly asked Raila and others to support Uhuru as well.[17]
Raila and other KANU members, including Kalonzo Musyoka, George Saitoti and Joseph Kamotho, opposed this step arguing that the then 38-year-old Uhuru, was politically inexperienced and lacked the leadership qualities needed to govern. The Rainbow Movement went on to join the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which later teamed up with Mwai Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), a coalition of several other parties, to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) that eventually defeated Moi's protege, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Dissent from within
Raila with Gordon Brown at Kibera
The perceived "betrayal" led to an open rebellion and a split within the cabinet, which culminated in disagreements over a proposed new constitution for the country. The government-backed constitutional committee submitted a draft constitution that was perceived to consolidate powers of the presidency and weaken regional governments as had been provided for under an earlier draft before the 2002 Elections. Raila opposed this, and when the document was put to a referendum on 21 November 2005, the government lost by a 57% to 43% margin. Following this, President Kibaki sacked the entire cabinet on 23 November 2005. When it was formed two weeks later, Raila and the entire LDP group were left out. This led to the formation of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) – an Orange was the symbol for the "no" vote in the constitutional referendum.
In January 2006, Raila Odinga was reported to have told police that he believed his life was in danger, having received assassination threats.[19]
2007 presidential election
On 12 July 2007, Odinga alleged that the government was withholding identity cards from voters in places supportive of the opposition and that the intended creation of 30 new constituencies was a means by which the government sought to ensure victory in the December 2007 parliamentary election.[20]
Raila addressing the Kenyan media during the 2007–08 Kenyan crisis
Odinga launched his presidential campaign in Uhuru Park in Nairobi on 6 October 2007.
Following the presidential election held on 27 December, the Electoral Commission in declared Kibaki the winner on 30 December 2007, placing him ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes. Jeffrey Sachs (Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Special Advisor to former UN Secretary General) faulted the United States' approach to the post-election crisis and recommended an independent recount of the vote.[24]
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama of the United States pose for a photo during a reception at the Metropolitan Museum in New York with Raila Amolo Odinga, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya, and his wife, Mrs. Ida Odinga
British Foreign Secretary William Hague meeting Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya in London, 10 August 2012
2013 presidential election
Odinga speaking at a visit to Peace Corps
Raila Odinga's party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) joined Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper Party and Moses Wetangula's Ford Kenya (FK) in a CORD coalition (Coalition for Reforms and Democracy) for the presidential race with Raila as the presidential candidate and Kalonzo as his running mate to face Jubilee's coalition ( Uhuru Kenyatta's (The National Alliance – TNA), William Ruto's (United Republican Party – URP), Charity Ngilu's (National Rainbow Coalition – NARC) and Najib Balala's (Republican Congress – RC)).
In addition, few individuals from western countries led by former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson had tried to influence in favour of Raila the Kenyan voters by issuing threats if they chose Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Most notable statement from Carson was "Choices have consequences."
Raila Amolo Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya, with, from left, Pierre Nkurunziza, President of Burundi, Bingu Wa Mutharika, President of Malawi, Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, and John Agyekum Kufuor, President of Ghana, during the Opening Plenary of the World Economic Forum on Africa 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa, 4 June 2008
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) therefore officially declared Uhuru Kenyatta the president elect on Saturday 9 March at 2:44pm. Uhuru was set to take office as Kenya's 4th president.
However, Raila Odinga in a press conference shortly after the results were announced noted that the election had been marred by massive failures by the BVR kits, EVID (electronic voter identification or "Pollbooks"), RTS (results transmission system or "tallying system") and the RPS (results presentation or "transmissions system"). He claimed that the manual tallying was suspect leaving him no choice but to The Kenya Presidential Election Petition 2013 contest the result in Kenya's highest court, The Supreme Court.
Mindful of bringing the challenge, Raila Odinga and his lawyers George Oraro, Mutula Kilonzo, and James Orengo, secretly instructed Raj Pal Senna,[29] a Management Consultant from Barcelona to carry out a forensic investigation of the technology used in the Kenyan General Election 2013, during which the IEBC made claims on TV and media that there were "technological challenges", that "servers overloaded" and that "database crashed". Raj Pal Senna included in this work a forensic examination of the evidence of IEBC and Uhuru Kenyatta in relation to the technology deployed during the Kenyan Presidential Elections. Raila Odinga and his lawyers then took appropriate legal steps to verify the findings of Raj Pal Senna by consulting authorities in the USA and the UK. The findings of the Raj Pal Senna were then documented in his witness statement for Raila Odinga, and became to be known as "Witness Statement RO6"[30][31]
Kenya's chief justice Dr. Willy Mutunga announced on Monday, 11 March that the Supreme Court was fully formed and ready to deliver its judgements within 14 days as stipulated by the constitution of Kenya.
During the Petition hearing, Chief Justice Willy Mutung made a finding rejecting second affidavit of Raila Odinga which comprised 900 pages, on the basis that it amounted to "new evidence" which is not permitted under the Constitution. Subsequently, The Supreme Court issued a ruling dismissing the petition on 30 March 2013. The Supreme Court while declaring Uhuru the next President also declared that the IEBC should not have included the invalid/spoilt votes in the calculation of the final figures and percentages. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga also directed that the EACC (Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission) and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) carry out a criminal investigation of the IEBC in relation to the BVR, EVID, RTS and RPS.[32]
After the supreme court dismissed his petition Raila flew to South Africa to avoid attending the Inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta, held on 9 April 2013 at Moi Sports Complex at Kasarani, Nairobi. The swearing ceremony marked the end of his premiership.
In an important development, the full investigation findings were published as the OpCo Report[33] on the website www.kenya-legal.com and inspired the documentary "50+1 – The Inside Story"[34] by KTN journalists John Namu and Mohammed Ali.
This documentary examines the history of election fraud and the history of corruption in the Judiciary, and in which Raila Odinga claims that it can not be ruled out that it was a deliberate act or omission by the Court not to subject the technical evidence to scrutiny because the outcome would invalidate the entire election process and discredit the IEBC. The documentary also examines the findings of Raj Pal Senna, which are summarised as follows:[35]
The IEBC purportedly spent KES 16 billion on BVR to acquire the following:
- 1 HP DL 580 Proliant Server 2TB HDD + 128GB RAM for Central Biometric Server
- SMART Array P410
- 15,000 Dell 500GB HDD laptops
- 15,000 MorphoTop fingerprint scanners
- 15,000 MorphoCivis software licenses
- 15,000 cameras
- 15,000 printers
- 15,000 USB flash drives
- 15,000 USB modems
- 15,000 3G/GSM SIM
- 15,000 Windows 7 licenses
- 15,000 MS Office licenses
- 15,000 MS Windows Server 2008 license
- Unspecified number of solar chargers
- 15,000 hard carrying cases
- 33,400 Dell 500 HDD laptops
- 33,400 Futronics and Nordsen fingerprint scanners
- 33,400 Innovatrics ExpressID software licenses
- 33,400 printers
- 33,400 CD Cards
- 33,400 USB modems
- 33,400 3G/GSM SIM
- 33,400 MS Office licenses
- 33,400 Windows 7 licenses
- 33,400 hard carrying cases
- Unspecified number of solar chargers
- 1 HP DL 580 Proliant Server 2TB HDD, 128GB RAM :National Tally Centre
- 1 HP DL 900 Proliant Server 2TB HDD, 128GB RAM backup National Tally Centre
- 290 HP DL 580 Proliant Servers 2TB HDD, 128GB RAM :Constituency Tally Centre
- 47 HP DL 580 Proliant Servers 2TB HDD, 128GB RAM for County Tally Centre
- 66,800 laptops (2 at each polling station)
- 580 laptops (2 at each county tally centre)
- 94 laptops (2 at each county tally centre)
- 67,813 3G/GSM SIM Cards for USB modems
- 33,400 3G/GSM SIM Cards for mobile phones
- 67,813 USB modems
- 10,000 Nokia 100 mobile phones
- 25,000 Nokia 1680 mobile phones
- Thuraya satellite phones (quantity unknown)
- Web based manual over-ride system ( CRM application "African Focus CRM")
- RTS software (NEMS – developed by Next Technology for 2010 Referendum)
- Java Application developed by IFES to transmit results of 6 elections
- 339 Windows Server 2008 R2 licenses
- 67,474 Windows 7 licenses
- 67,813 MS Office licenses
- Unspecified number of solar chargers
- Unspecified number of carrying cases
- 339 display screens and stands
- 1 Server at Kencall running Oracle 11g Goldengate
- 1 HP DL 580 Proliant Server at Bomas
- Oracle 11g Goldengate database license
- 33,400 Oracle 11g user licences
- (i)Total storage capacity on disk drives = 56,769.82 TB [36]
- (ii)Total DDR3 RAM = 266.86 TB [37]
- (iii)Total CPUs = 115,554 [38]
- (iv)Total Cores = 232,468 [39]
- (v)Total data for BVR = 636 TB [40]
- (vi)Total data for RTS = 978 MB [41]
- 2 Database servers (each with 8 x Xeon 10 Core CPUs, 2TB RAM, 8 x 3TB HDD )
- 14 Storage servers (8 x 3TB HDD, 2x Xeon 6 Core CPUs, 1.6 TB Flash Memory)
- Usable storage capacity 224 TB (RAID 1 – mirrored)
- Total CPUs = 30 (IEBC had 114,874 available)
- Total Cores = 328 (IEBC had 232,468 available)
- Total CPU Cache = 4 TB
- Total DDR3 RAM/Flash =26.4 TB (IEBC had 226 TB available)
- This has the capability to carry out 1,500,000 (1.5 million) simultaneous transactions PER SECOND.
- Lifespan = 10 years
- Load capacity = 16TB per hour (17,000 times beyond the requirements of RTS)
Political positions
Economics
Due to an economic downturn and extreme drought, Odinga called for the suspension of taxes on fuels and certain foods that disproportionately impact the poor.[44]
British Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham meeting Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga in London, 7 July 2011
Personal life
Raila and his wife Ida at a political rally
Odinga is married to Ida Odinga (née Anyango Oyoo). They live in Karen, Nairobi and have a second home at central Farm, in Nyeri County. The couple have four children: Fidel (1973–2015),[47] Rosemary (born 1977), Raila Jr. (born 1979) and Winnie (born 1990). Fidel was named after Fidel Castro[48] and Winnie after Winnie Mandela. Winnie is currently studying Communication and International Area Studies as a double major student at Drexel University in Philadelphia.[48]
In an interview with BBC News in January 2008, Odinga asserted that he was the first cousin of U.S. president Barack Obama through Obama's father.[49] However, Barack Obama's paternal uncle denied any direct relation to Odinga, stating "Odinga's mother came from this area, so it is normal for us to talk about cousins. But he is not a blood relative."[50] Obama's father came from the same Luo community as Odinga.[49]
Odinga briefly played soccer for Luo Union (now Gor Mahia) as a midfielder.[48]
Odinga was appointed by the African Union to mediate the 2010-2011 Ivorian crisis, which involved Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo. Raila wrote "Flame of Freedom" a 1040 paged autobiography which talks about his life from childhood. It was launched on 6 October 2013 in Kenya and subsequently in USA on 15 October 2013.He was accompanied by a section of Kenyan county governors.
Controversy
During his premiership, Odinga appointed Miguna Miguna as his advisor on coalition affairs, who he later suspended in August 2011,[51] citing "gross misconduct". The Daily Nation quoted his reason for suspension as being "accused of misrepresenting the office of the Prime Minister, possibly a reference to his having aired strong views which may have embarrassed the PM." Miguna Miguna latter published controversial books about his working relationship with Raila. The books were political and did not sell.His suspension came at a time when the electoral body, the IIEC, was is in an uproar and unsettled by anonymously authored complaints which the commissioners characterise as a hate campaign but which raise troubling questions on corruption and nepotism. Later Miguna, after suspension, issued a statement that said he "was instructed to write my article on the IIEC chairman and the position he had taken with respect to the party's decision to kick out rebellious MPs and Councillors." He later denied, according to the Nairobi Star.[52] Miguna is now the author of two books.
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