
Kenya’s Interior Ministry has declared the opposition alliance known as the National Resistance Movement, or NRM, a criminal organization after the group’s leader, Raila Odinga, in front of thousands of supporters, symbolically took the oath of “president” in defiance of last year’s controversial election and of authorities who said his actions would be considered treason.
Odinga was greeted by thousands of frenzied supporters at Nairobi’s Uhuru ParkTuesday afternoon, despite a seven-hour delay that some endured in the hot sun. As the 73-year-old and his entourage drove through the crowd, his supporters jostled, and some scuffled, to see him inaugurated as the so-called “people’s president.”
After swearing an oath of office on a green bible, Odinga called it a “historic day for the people of Kenya.”
“Today’s step is one step towards doing away with electoral autocracy,” said Odinga. “And, establishing full-fledged democracy in our country.”