Obama’s half-brother flops in Kenyan election

Malik Obama ran on a campaign of “change.’’

Malik Obama, the 54-year-old half-brother of U.S. President, Barack Obama, failed miserably in his effort to get elected as a governor in Western Kenya as results on Friday showed that he received just 1 per cent of the votes cast in his constituency.

The Kenyan accountant, who ran as an independent, garnered just 694 votes in a race with over 55,000 ballots cast in Siaya County. The winner was William Odhiambo Oduol, with 56 per cent of the vote.

The two Obamas share the same father but have different mothers. Malik ran on a campaign of “change,’’ echoing his younger brother’s slogans of hope and change in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

According to Malik Obama, the last time he spoke to his brother was after the U.S. elections, when the latter 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. In 2009, Obama’s first trip to Africa was to Ghana. Barack Obama last visited Kenya in 2006, when he was a senator.

(NAN)