Veteran Kenyan politician Raila Odinga has stood for president five times and failed to win. Now, the 79-year-old opposition leader and former prime minister has turned his sights on the top job at the African Union.<\/p>\n
He faces three strong competitors, from Djibouti, Mauritius, and Madagascar, in his bid to be elected Chairperson of the Commission.<\/p>\n
The vote for a successor to Chad\u2019s Moussa Faki Mahamat is due to take place by secret ballot at the AU summit in February.<\/p>\n
Odinga has, however, won what some may see as a surprising supporter.<\/p>\n
Incumbent Kenyan President William Ruto, who narrowly defeated Odinga in the 2022 election, has backed his rival\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Kenya formally launched Odinga\u2019s candidature, presenting him as the \u201ccomplete package\u201d needed to tackle Africa\u2019s conflicts and economy.<\/p>\n
Ruto is banking on Odinga to push through Nairobi\u2019s proposed reforms to make AU institutions more accountable, efficient, and effective.<\/p>\n
Officially launching his campaign last week, Odinga highlighted his priorities for the organisation if elected.<\/p>\n
These include a focus on economic development, enhancing intra-African trade, and tackling climate change, with particular attention to large-scale continental infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
He must now convince the AU\u2019s 54 member states of his readiness to take on a potential four-year term.<\/p>\n
If Odinga wins, he will become the oldest chairperson of the Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Veteran Kenyan politician Raila Odinga has stood for president five times and failed to win. Now, the 79-year-old opposition leader and former prime minister has turned his sights on the top job at the African Union. He faces three strong competitors, from Djibouti, Mauritius, and Madagascar, in his bid to be elected Chairperson of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":12,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1116,29,2362,33],"tags":[452,111,1086,293,1344,320],"class_list":["post-14100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-union","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-djibouti","tag-kenya","tag-madagascar","tag-mauritius","tag-moussa-faki-mahamat","tag-raila-odinga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}