Mr Raila Odinga’s move to change parties has been driven by his willingness to form alliances, even at one time entering into a coalition with former President Daniel Moi, under whom he had been detained. But he has stayed with the same core party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), since 2005. The party got its name from a referendum campaign Mr Odinga led against a proposed constitution in 2005. The nays were denoted by an orange while supporters were given a banana symbol.
Mr Odinga’s more creative supporters still adorn themselves with bunches of oranges. But alliances are not always easy and he broke up with former President Kibaki after the 2002 election because Mr Kibaki reneged on a pre-election power-sharing deal. An astute politician and avid campaigner who is known to move crowds using parables and football commentary, Mr Odinga represented Lang’ata constituency in the capital, Nairobi, uninterrupted for 20 years.
And he refused to accept that he had lost again on 8 August to Uhuru Kenyatta, the same man who beat him in the 2013 election and is the son of Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta. Mr Odinga’s father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, served as Jomo Kenyatta’s vice-president but the pair fell out and Mr Odinga quit in 1966, sparking a political rivalry that is yet to be settled.
In the August 2017 election, he ran on behalf of the National Super Alliance (Nasa), which includes all of Kenya’s main opposition groups. It is a big achievement that he has convinced other political heavyweights to sacrifice their own ambitions to support him in what is likely to be his final stab at the presidency. He had promised that, if elected, he would serve only one term in office. The astute politician that he is, Mr Odinga used allegory and riddles to tell his supporters how the electoral commission denied him of victory.
A son of Kenya’s first Vice-President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, this year’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency was his fourth and most likely his last. Mr Odinga evokes mixed emotions in Kenya – he is loved and loathed in equal measure. No politician divides opinion like him.
To his supporters, he is a democrat who has sacrificed a lot in his fight against dictatorship but others see him as a scheming and selfish person, who will do anything to gain power.
A wealthy man by Kenyan standards, he has interests in liquid gas cylinder manufacturer, the East Africa Spectre, and ethanol production through the Kisumu Molasses Plan.