Former Prime Minister and opposition leader Raila Odinga, known throughout Kenya as “Baba” (father), has died in Kerala, India, where he was receiving treatment for health problems. Odinga was 80 years old and will be remembered above all for having been a candidate for president five times in elections and never having managed to win one. In 2008, after the initial results seemed to favour him, the reversal of votes in favour of Mwai Kibaki caused the well-known post-election chaos that resulted in more than a thousand deaths in the country.
From there, Kibaki accepted the proposal of the then UN Secretary-General, Koffi Annan, to create a broad-based government in which Odinga was appointed Prime Minister.
Odinga, who had a socialist background (he named one of his sons, who has since disappeared, Fidel) has always been seen by the poor people of Kenya as a beacon of hope for their salvation and their problems, even though recently, after protests by Generation Z youth in July last year, he accepted the proposal of President William Ruto, his former ally, to join the government with some members of the former opposition coalition, appointed by Ruto as ministers. This had caused discontent among his supporters, especially in the slums of Nairobi and in his stronghold, the Lake Victoria region, where he was born to his father Oginga Odinga, one of Kenya's first politicians and a historic opponent of the father of the nation, Jomo Kenyatta.
Odinga's legacy will be difficult to uphold. Today, Kenya has no real opposition, and the risk of a return to tribal divisions remains very high.