Raila Amolo Odinga

The man whose political career defined Kenya’s multiparty politics

I: A politician for the ages

With reference to leading personalities, politics in post-independence Kenya can be periodized into three eras: the Jomo Kenyatta era (1963-1978), the Daniel arap Moi era (1978-2002), and the Raila Odinga era (2003-2025). As the founding president Kenyatta shaped Kenya’s postcolonial political settlement, the related elite bargains, broad contours of economic policymaking, and the country’s path of constitutional (under)development. Elites or regions/communities that did not fit within the “Kenyatta model,” like Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga, Bildad Kaggiah, and J.M. Kariuki were simply taken out of the picture in one way or another. Path dependence being what it is, Kenya still feels the echoes of the Kenyatta era to this day.

Moi set the agenda through his attempts at redistribution of wealth and power away from those who held both under Kenyatta. His (paranoid) style of managing the economic and political crises of the 1980s and 1990s added its own layer onto the autocratic administrative-bureaucratic system that he inherited from Kenyatta. Importantly, Moi shaped the development of party politics in Kenya. While he failed at turning KANU into a mass party with staying power, KANU’s legacy lives on in the leading personalities that continue to dominate Kenyan politics. The parties have different names, and the coalitions shift with every political season. But it’s hard to miss the KANU style in Kenyan party politics. The KANU alumni network lives on and continues to reproduce itself.

Odinga never became president — he won in 2007 but was rigged out and came close in 2022. But he defined his era by being a critical player in the push for regime change in the 1990s, the constitutional reform movement, and the pattern of institutionalization of multiparty politics after Moi. As a leading opposition figure comfortable with being both inside and outside the establishment, Odinga shaped the Moi succession as well as the presidencies of Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, and William Ruto.

Raila Odinga during a past interview. Source: ANA

Raila Odinga’s passing on October 15, 2025 in Kerala, India marks the beginning of the end of the Odinga era. He was 80 and is survived by his wife Mama Ida Odinga, three children, and multiple grandchildren.

History books will struggle to pigeonhole the man who styled himself as the enigma of Kenyan politics. He was a complex mix of idealism and brutal pragmatism. For a long time he was the de facto leader of the conscientious and reformist wing of mainstream politics. But he was also very much an establishment politician, open to dabbling in transactional “handshake” politics with the reactionary forces whose interests were at variance with Kenya’s political and economic development.

Odinga was a master political tactician who ran rings around four different presidents. But even setting aside 2007, his lack of strategic nous denied him the chance to win the presidency. He had a strong reformist streak — most prominently fighting for and deservedly being viewed by many as the father of the 2010 constitution. But he was also a pragmatic compromiser, ever willing to cut deals with incumbent administrations that violated the same constitution. He built what is arguably Kenya’s most organizationally coherent party (ODM), but was also known to be wary of promoting talent or independent centers of power within his orbit. And for all the talk of a better Kenya for all throughout his political career, his development record was patchy. He represented the infamous Kibera slum in parliament; and failed to galvanize counties governed by his party around a coherent developmentalist agenda after 2013.

On balance, history will judge Raila Odinga’s contributions to Kenya positively. When the passions settle and both sides of the ledger are tallied with the benefit of hindsight, he will emerge as better than the average politician. His contributions towards dislodging KANU from power, willingness to step from the precipice after the rigged 2007 elections and refusing to sponsor violence, push for the 2010 constitution, ability to galvanize a truly national movement in the form of ODM, and overall role as the mainstream leader of reformist politics will stand the test of time.

II: A (sometimes) traitor to his political class

Raila Amolo Odinga was born on January 7, 1945 in Maseno to the future Vice President Oginga Odinga and his wife Ajuma. His education journey took him to Maranda High School and then onwards to East Germany to train as an engineer. Alongside Tom Mboya’s more famous student airlifts to the West, leftist politicians led by the senior Odinga organized Eastern bloc airlifts. When he got back in the early 1970s his father’s political star had dimmed. 1969 had happened. The party his father led after resigning from the Vice Presidency, KPU, was banned. And the influence of Luo politicians on the national scene markedly downgraded. The young Odinga joined the civil service (Kenya Bureau of Standards) and then started his own business (what would become the Spectre group of firms).

The East Germany sojourn spawned an interesting subplot in Odinga’s political career. His detractors would always use this to label him as a anti-capitalist/communist, conveniently ignoring his public record as a thoroughly Kenyan capitalist who, like much of the upper class, was minted in an era when mixing public service with private enterprise was officially encouraged.

Moi’s ascendancy to the presidency in 1978 would bring a brief official rehabilitation of the Odingas. Four years later, the 1982 coup attempt and the junior Odinga’s alleged involvement cooled relations with the state. Six years of detention followed before a brief exile in Europe. It is upon his return that Odinga publicly thrust himself into politics under the wings of his father.

Most Kenyan politicians are predominantly motivated by accumulating and protecting wealth. Odinga was different in the sense that he was in politics predominantly for the politics. Yes, he made money and, more importantly, enabled hangers on to make money. But he personally reveled in reformist politics. It’s no wonder that he’s the only one who managed to build a post-KANU party with a truly national appeal.

The fact that doing reformist politics was his predominant motivation made Odinga a conflicted member of the political establishment. His brand of politics opened the door to ideologically-motivated political mobilization and populist mass influence on policy. He was an insider who controlled and bargained using his political base, but was also open to being captured by the same base for their own ends. This two-way relationship with the masses is an under-appreciated feature of Odinga’s political career. For these reasons university students loved him. Low-income voters loved him. Human rights groups loved to project their hopes on him. The idealist literati loved him. Much of the street loved him. And the establishment feared him.

Of course the love was neither uniform nor always requited. Many idealists who projected their hopes on Odinga saw them dashed either by his own shortcomings, or the system’s insurmountable rigidity. Yet it’s hard to think of another mainstream Kenyan politician who for so long was the personal custodian of a collective national desire for a better Kenya.

Overall, Odinga’s political career speaks to broader questions about the limits of electoral politics as a conduit for structural political change. To become a bona fide national politician he had to leverage the politics of ethnicity. There was no going around the fact that national political viability is highly conditional on having command over a recognized voting bloc. This meant fighting for control of the party his father led, FORD-Kenya; and when he couldn’t bolting away to start his own outfit. Yet after becoming the Luo kingpin he could never really shed that tag even as he amassed national support well beyond his ethnic group. Thus political ethnicity limited the impact of his reformist message. For example, in 2007 many reformists from the 1990s chose ethnicity over an honest reckoning with Odinga’s stolen victory.

A significant share of voters, too, struggled to overcome their conditioning to view Odinga as, first and foremost, a Luo politician. While many respected his reformist credentials and style as a pugilist opposition leader, they always found a reason to not elect him as president. The same voters would then turn around and criticize him for his “handshakes” with the very people they elected instead.

It speaks to his political skill and personal charisma that so many people viewed him as the consummate outsider whose cooperation with the establishment was an aberration. And as a corollary, Odinga’s willingness to compromise reflected his rejection of symbolic oppositionist politics. A section of voters may have assigned him the perpetual role of overseeing those in charge, but he also wanted to be the man in the arena.

The void left by Odinga will be hard to fill.

Throughout today it’s been interesting to see evidence of the fact that few Kenyans seriously contemplated politics after Raila Odinga. There will be a lot of time in the near future to meditate on the political implications of Odinga’s passing.

For now, the country mourns with the Odinga family. Lala salama Jakom.