KENYA: President Kibaki put on notice as rivals in upcoming election submit nomination papers

Record ID: 361282

  • Title: KENYA: President Kibaki put on notice as rivals in upcoming election submit nomination papers
  • Date: 14th November 2007
  • Summary: ODINGA SEATED AS HIS SUPPORTERS CLAP CROWD OF OPPOSITION SUPPORTERS LEAVING THE KENYATTA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTER
  • Embargoed: 29th November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9AIN82LSC8TATQEKMSUU8ZS2C
  • Story Text: Kenya's top presidential challenger Raila Odinga presented nomination papers from his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party to the Electoral Commission of Kenya, as did rival and third-placed challenger Kalonzo Musyoka, of Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K).
    Odinga, who has a narrow lead in opinion polls, said American pollster Dick Morris had joined his team to help him defeat incumbent President Mwai Kibaki to lead east Africa's biggest economy.
    Kibaki, who wants another five-year term, is due to present his papers on Thursday (November 15).
    In the latest polls, Odinga's lead narrowed to 45 percent, with Kibaki tallying 41 percent and Musyoka 15 percent.
    Morris rose to fame as an architect of former U.S. President Bill Clinton's successful 1996 re-election campaign, but resigned in the middle of it after a tabloid published a story of Morris' year-long affair with a 200 US dollars-an-hour prostitute.
    Odinga, who is the wealthy scion of his Luo tribe's most prominent family, paints himself as a champion of the poor and the alternative to a government he says failed to deliver its 2002 election pledge of eliminating corruption.
    Kibaki has urged Kenyans to look at his government's record of development and economic growth against what his opponents' did while they were in government -- which he says is little more than make unrealised promises.
    Both Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, who is a distant third in the polls, were in Kibaki's cabinet before the president fired them in 2005 after they fell out over a new constitution.
    Though campaign season has been in full swing for months, Wednesday's formalities signal the official campaign period up to the December 27 polls -- dubbed the Home Stretch by Kenyan media.
    Both Odinga and Musyoka called for the polls to be free and fair while Odinga said his party would stand by election results, even if his party lost.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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