Kenya Elections: Raila Odinga confirmed main opposition Presidential Candidate

Kenya’s veteran politician Raila Odinga has been confirmed as the main opposition coalition’s presidential candidate for August’s election.

Mr Odinga, 72, is set to face incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, the man who beat him in 2013.

This will be the fourth time Mr Odinga runs for president.

He also ran in the disputed 2007 poll.

The violence that followed led to the creation of a unity government in which Mr Odinga served as prime minister.

Mr Odinga will represent the National Super Alliance (Nasa), which is a coalition of the country’s main opposition parties including the candidate’s Orange Democratic Movement. The announcement was made at a rally at Uhuru Park in the capital, Nairobi.

Thousands of opposition supporters turned up and live video footage from the rally showed them breaking out into wild cheers as Mr Odinga’s name was read out.

His running mate will be former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. Mr Odinga is trying to run on an anti-corruption message and is also emphasizing that he is the candidate of national unity, says the BBC’s Dickens Olewe.

President Kenyatta says that Kenya has achieved a lot of economic development under his government and he has managed to increase opportunities for the country’s large youthful population.

-3news

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ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

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An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

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