ALL AFRICA, THE EAST AFRICAN, (Kenya), AFP
NAIROBI – Malik Obama, the 54-year-old half-brother of U.S President Barack Obama, failed miserably in his effort to get elected as county governor in Kenya reports All Africa.
Malik Obama shares a father with the most powerful man in the world but it didn’t seem to help him.
According to the AFP, Obama won just 2792 votes putting him at around 140,000 votes behind the final winner.
Obama describes himself as an economist and a financial analyst and said he would use his contacts in Washington in order to bring development to his rural region. He has also said he dreamed of bringing chains like McDonald’s to the area and launching a bid for the presidency.
Obama ran on a campaign of “change,” echoing his younger brother’s slogans in the 2008 U.S presidential election. One of his slogans was “Obama here, Obama there.”
He told the AFP “Why would my people settle for a local connection when they have a direct line to the White House?”
However, according to All Africa, the last time the two brothers spoke was after the U.S. elections, when the U.S. President promised to visit Kenya if the elections were fair and transparent.
Many Kenyans were disappointed that Barack Obama did not visit during his first term, reports All Africa. He last visited Kenya in 2006, when he was a senator.
On Saturday, Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of the Kenyan presidential elections, but defeated challenger Prime Minister Raila Odinga announced he would challenge the result in Kenya’s Supreme Court, citing irregularities in the electoral process, reports the East African.
Kenyatta won 50.07% of the vote, while Odinga won 43.31% of the vote, according to the East African.
Later this year Kenyatta is expected to stand trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for “crimes against humanity.” He is accused of stoking tribal violence and running death squads that killed more than 1,2000 people in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections.
