Obama’s Brother Runs for Office, Loses by a Lot

While most eyes focused on the election of Uhuru Kenyatta during Kenya’s recent presidential election, a man named Obama was running for office too. Malik Obama, half-brother of the POTUS, did not win his gubernatorial seat in the election. In fact he only won 2,792 votes, 130,000 less than the eventual victor. Obama campaigned on the promise that he would use his ahem, contacts, in Washington to bring change to Kenya. Though Malik lives in Washington, D.C. (he’s featured somewhat prominently in Dreams from my Father) half the year, he doesn’t exactly agree with his brother’s politics.

Malik reveals how he once tried to use his family ties to change the shape of international politics – by pleading with his brother to save Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi after his people turned against him in 2011. ‘I went to see my brother and I said look, this is somebody I know and it’s terrible what is going on. Let’s see if we can talk to him and find some kind of rapprochement. He wasn’t interested.

[NPR]