Raila Odinga, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and a longtime opposition figure in Kenya, campaigned for president in his native hometown Bondo Siaya County.
If elected in the election on August 9th, Odinga pledged to address issues of education, corruption, and poverty.
“There are four enemies that Kenyans are struggling with: poor health, ignorance, poverty, and corruption. And I have given you my word that I will fight so hard to end these four enemies of Kenya. As Azimio we shall establish free education from early childhood to university and this will end ignorance,” said Raila Odinga.
However, the high expense of living in Kenya has been a strain for many people. Some attribute it to the widespread corruption and unemployment that render the populace powerless.
“If you look at them, they are spending millions, billions in doing the campaigns, and some of this money has been stolen from the public. And when they come there they tell you that they are for the common mwanainchi (common man), common mwanainchi walks barefoot, and the common mwanainchi doesn’t have food to eat. the cost of living has risen so much high even the employed like us, we are crying for it, but these people are using a lot of money,” said Benard Ooko, a supporter of the ODM party and resident of Siaya.
However, the high expense of living in Kenya has been a strain for many people. Some attribute it to the widespread corruption and unemployment that render the populace powerless.
“I am not happy with them spending a lot of money hiring choppers, the choppers are very expensive. Per day hiring a chopper cost about two hundred thousand shillings (2000USD) and in a day they only attend two or three rallies and they started campaigning four months ago. So they have spent billions and billions of shillings. Where are they getting that money from? It’s from the taxpayers,” said Samuel Onyango Wala, a supporter of the ODM party and resident of Siaya.
On August 9, the economically dominant nation of East Africa will hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the wake of earlier elections that were frequently marred by ethnic violence.
Kenya has long experienced politically motivated communal violence around election time due to its diversified population and sizable ethnic voting blocs, most notably during a 2007 election in which more than 1,100 people died.
Deputy President William Ruto, 55, and veteran politician and former prime minister Raila Odinga, 77, are seen as the front-runners in this year’s presidential race.
President Uhuru Kenyatta must resign after serving the maximum of two terms of five years, and two additional candidates have been given the green light to run in the election to succeed him.
Ruto was initially chosen by Kenyatta to be his successor, but since Odinga and Kenyatta formed an alliance in 2018, Ruto has been left in the cold.
Ruto is positioning himself as a voice for “hustlers” attempting to make ends meet in a nation dominated by “dynasties,” in the hopes that his rags-to-riches story of rising from a street vendor to a prominent politician will resonate with Kenya‘s youth.
Since Kenya’s independence in 1963, the Kenyatta and Odinga families have controlled the country’s politics.
