Raila Odinga: Police in India announce that former Kenyan Prime Minister has died aged 80 - what was cause of death?
Police in India have said that former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has died at the age of 80.
Local news reported that he was at an Ayurvedic center in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Raila reportedly died of a heart attack.
Odinga spent many years as an opposition leader, losing five presidential races, the last of which was three years ago. He was prime minister under one of the men who defeated him, Mwai Kibaki, from 2008 to 2013.
There are reports that his health condition has deteriorated, although his family has denied this. Odinga ran unsuccessfully for Kenya’s presidency five times. Two of those elections — in 2007 and 2017 — ended in chaos, sparking violence and deep divisions in the country.
Despite his electoral defeats, Odinga is widely credited for his role in Kenya’s democratic evolution. His decades-long activism helped secure two landmark political reforms: the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in 1991 and the adoption of a new constitution in 2010.
Odinga also led nationwide protests after the disputed 2007 election, which triggered Kenya’s worst political violence since independence. More than 1,300 people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the unrest.