Veteran Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has ended months of speculation and announced that he will run for president in next August's elections.
The 76-year-old is a popular politician despite having lost presidential races on four previous occasions – 1997, 2007, 2013 and 2017.
The most recent poll saw him run against President Uhuru Kenyatta. But the two men have since moved closer following their famous 2018 “handshake” increased at ending divisions which have proved so deadly.
“I do hereby accept to present myself as a presidential candidate for the presidential elections of the 9th of August 2022,” the AFP news agency quotes him as telling cheering supporters at a Nairobi stadium.
Mr Odinga's main rival for the top job is likely to be the current Deputy President, William Ruto. The current president will be constitutionally barred from running as he will have served two terms.
Mr Ruto has presented himself as being on the side of the “hustlers” against the “dynasties”.
Hustlers refer to those – especially young people – who struggle to make ends meet in an economy that is said to be no longer working for them.
The word dynasties, on the other hand, is a moniker to describe wealthy families, like the Kenyattas and Odingas, who are seen to have dominated politics – and the economy – since independence from the UK in 1963.
Read more:
Kenya’s Deputy President Ruto campaigns for ‘Hustler Nation
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