It was like a bizarre beauty contest when the two front runners in Kenya’s presidential elections - Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga – swung through London within days of each other in March. The election race pitting Ruto (the king of hustler economics) against Raila (the inheritor of his father’s political dynasty) does not translate positively for foreign agencies. What comes across is the deep personal antagonism between the two candidates.
This is reflected in many of the social media posts about this election, which have included personal and ethnic slurs as well as wholly manufactured accusations. The ultimate judges in this drama are meant to be the 22 million registered voters in Kenya who are ready to go to cast their ballots on 9 August.
In London, both Raila and Ruto were courting the same circuit of government officials; international
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