Sunday, September 02, 2007
NAIROBI, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A Kenyan party nominated top opposition challenger Raila Odinga on Saturday as its candidate to take on President Mwai Kibaki in elections expected in December.
Odinga, a former ally turned fierce critic of Kibaki trails the president in the latest opinion poll giving him 25 percent of the vote to the incumbent's 45 percent ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls in east Africa's biggest economy.
"The coming election will be a fight between the forces for the retention of the status quo and the forces for change," Odinga told thousands of cheering Orange Democratic Movement
The son of a former vice-president and hero of Kenya's independence struggle, Odinga is credited with being the architect of Kibaki's landslide victory in 2002, bringing with him the votes of his large Luo tribe.
But the two fell out after Kibaki allegedly reneged on a deal to make Odinga prime minister.
Source: Reuters, Sept 02, 2007