Profile: Kenya's two leading presidential candidates
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E-mail Xinhua, March 3, 2013
Kenya's general elections are scheduled to take place on Monday. Following are profiles of the two leading presidential candidates:
-- Raila Amollo Odinga, the son of Kenya's independent Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, has been an active political player in Kenya's political arena since early 1980's.
Born on Jan. 7, 1945, Odinga is a hero of second liberation campaigning on the platform of reformist politicians in Cord coalition, a coalition of 17 parties that have nominated him to contest the March 4 elections.
To his admirers, he is fondly known by various names -- Agwambo (mysterious), Tinga (tractor), Jakom (chairman) and Owadgakinyi (son of Akinyi).
Odinga, 68, has been associated with the agitation for political reforms, sometimes taking leadership of the reform process that culminated into the new constitution that Kenyans approved in a referendum in August 2010.
A mechanical engineer by profession, Odinga, who is currently the Kenyan prime minister, is seeking the presidency in a third attempt. This will cap a three-decade political career during which he has travelled on a bumpy road.
But it was not until 1992 when he joined the political arena proper when he was elected the Member for Parliament for Langata, one of the constituencies in the capital Nairobi now renamed Kibra. Those elections were the first under Kenya's reintroduced multi- party political system, that Odinga, was a key agitator for.
From a lone ranger politician to building political alliances with former President Daniel arap Moi, later President Mwai Kibaki, then divorcing acrimoniously.
In 1997, he took a stab at the presidency, coming third after President Daniel arap Moi of KANU and Kibaki, the current president of Kenya.
Then in 2007, he also offered himself for the presidency, becoming the opposition presidential candidate.
The elections were however marred by claims of rigging, forcing formation of a grand coalition government where he became the prime minister.
His political journey has however not been smooth. In 1982, Odinga was placed under house arrest for being suspected of collaborating with the plotters of a failed coup attempt against Moi.
He was later acquitted of treason charges after being detained without trial for six years.
Released on Feb. 6, 1988, he was rearrested in September 1988 for his involvement with human rights and pro-democracy activists pressing for multi-party democracy in Kenya, which was then a one- party state.
Odinga was released on June 12, 1989, only to be incarcerated again on July 5, 1990, together with Kenneth Matiba, and former Nairobi Mayor Charles Rubia. He was released on June 21, 1991, and in October, he fled the country to Norway alleging government attempts to assassinate him.
Odinga received his early education at Komulo School in Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria, and then at Maranda School in his ancestral home area of Bondo.
He completed his secondary education at the Herder-Institut, Leipzig, in what was then the German Democratic Republic.
In 1965, having learned fluent German, Odinga joined the Magdeburg College of Advanced Technology, now Otto-Von-Guericke University, to study mechanical engineering. He graduated with a master's degree of science.
Odinga returned to Kenya and in May 1970 and joined the University of Nairobi, where he taught until 1974 as a tutorial fellow in the department of mechanical engineering.
When the Kenya Bureau of Standards was established in 1974, Odinga was appointment as deputy director of the bureau.
He was thus destined to become one of the most powerful among the country's second generation politicians coming from the Odinga dynasty which has dominated politics for half a century.
It is said that t he uniqueness in his political career is that he has the ability to change political parties at will, package them and popularize them over night.
He ditched Ford-Kenya party of his father, took over little known National Development Party (NDP) and used it in the first bid for presidency in 1997.
Thereafter, Moi's Kanu-NDP short-lived marriage ended in acrimonious divorce that gave birth to National Rainbow Coalition Party, which he is credited with Kibaki Tosha (is able) declaration that took President Kibaki to State House in 2002.
Sooner, he led a rebellion in Narc to humiliate the Kibaki government in a referendum to defeat the 2005 new Constitution in a campaign that produced the Orange Party.
In 2005, Odinga was dropped from the government he and campaigned for the rejection of the then draft constitution, with his coalition of like-minded politicians winning the NO vote to reject the constitution.
He then joined the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which he is still the leader and which has teamed up with 17 other parties to form CORD coalition.
He used it to fight a bruising political campaign against Kibaki in 2007 whose disputed presidential results plunged the country into chaos forcing international community to negotiate the coalition.
Odinga has held various cabinet positions under Moi and Kibaki administrations and controls the Odinga business empire.
He has been an active member of the African Leadership Forum and has worked as a resource person - including under the auspices of the US International Republican Institute (IRI) - for training in democracy and conflict resolution in various African nations, including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Burundi and Nigeria.
Odinga is a firm believer in welfare state as reflected in the current manifesto of the CORD Alliance.
Among the promises he has made to the electorate is to rived free universal healthcare, cash transfer for the elderly and the disabled and interest free loans to the youth.
-- Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta is campaigning on the platform of generational change.
Educated in the United States with degree in political science and economics he has twice held the Local Government portfolio; the key Finance ministry and controls the vast Kenyatta (his father) family business empire.
He is relatively a late comer in the Kenyan politics and was groomed into politics by the retired President Daniel Arap Moi who encouraged him to contest Gatundu South Parliamentary seat in 1997 on Kanu ticket which he lost.
Despite him losing in the parliamentary elections, Moi nominated him to Parliament, propelled him to Cabinet, and then anointed him as his successor in a move that sparked a bitter fall out in Kanu ahead of 2002 elections.
His association with the former president did not work in his favor politically, until he left the former ruling party KANU to launch the The National Alliance (TNA) party, which is sponsoring him in the March 4 elections, under the Jubilee Alliance, a coalition with the United Republican Party (URP) and other small parties.
This is his second bid at the presidency following unsuccessful 2002 attempt after being anointed by former President Moi.
His high political moment came in 2002 when KANU nominated him to run for presidency, coming second to the current President Mwai Kibaki.
The 52-year-old Kenyatta is among 4 prominent Kenyans facing trial at The Hague based International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for alleged role in the violence which erupted after the 2007 disputed presidential election.
Under Moi era, he was in the Raila-Ruto-Mudavadi axis that enabled him to ascend to one of the four Kanu vice-chairmen's position.
This collapsed with the anointment, then resurrected in the failed 2005 new Constitutions that brought them together in Orange campaign.
It fell apart again when deputy premier and one of the contestants for the presidency, Musalia Mudavadi and Ruto abandoned him in KANU to join Odinga. He shifted friendship to Kibaki ahead of 2007 elections.
Coming from the independence First Family he rides high on the big name that evokes nostalgia in some quarters and apprehension elsewhere.
Uhuru as he is commonly known in Kenya was born Oct. 26, 1961. He attended St Mary's School in Nairobi. From there he went on to study political science at Amherst College in the United States.
His initial entry into politics came through his election as the chairman of his hometown branch of the then ruling party KANU in 1997.
In 1999 Moi appointed Uhuru the new chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board. Then in October 2001 and Kenyatta was nominated to parliament and subsequently to the cabinet as Minister for Local Government.
Despite his political inexperience, he was favored by Moi as his successor and the former president made sure Kenyatta was the KANU presidential candidate in December 2002 election.
In the elections of 2007, he backed Kibaki for re-election was named minister of local government by Kibaki in January 2008, before becoming deputy prime minister and minister of trade in April 2008 as part of a coalition government.
Subsequently Kenyatta was finance minister of Finance from 2009 to 2012, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister.
In 2005, he teamed up with Raila Odinga, his competitor in the March 4 elections, in the campaigns against the draft constitution in 2005. That coalition won the referendum after Kenyans rejected the proposed constitution.
On Sept.13, 2007, Kenyatta withdrew from the December 2007 presidential election and said that he would back Kibaki for re- election. He said that he did not want to run unless he could be sure of winning.
On Jan. 23, 2012, the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed the cases against Kenyatta and four other Kenyans for his alleged role in the in the 2007/08 post-election violence that resulted in deaths of 1,300 people and displacement of 650,000 more. He is alleged to have financed a militia group known as Mungiki. Endi
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