The 9th Parliament of the Republic of Kenya was opened by elected President Mwai Kibaki on February 18, 2003. It was the first time that the formerly-dominant Kenya African National Union of Daniel arap Moi was in the minority. The triumphant NARC (a coalition of the National Alliance Party of Kenya and Liberal Democratic Party), which dominated in the general elections of 2002 was in the majority, led by Kibaki.[1]
However, after the 2005 constitutional referendum, Kibaki threw out the LDP members from his Cabinet, at which point the LDP left NARC and formed the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya in coalition with Uhuru Kenyatta's KANU party. In 2007, KANU left the coalition and mostly joined with Kibaki's new Party of National Unity, although some of its members stayed with the ODM-Kenya. The original NARC, now headed by Charity Ngilu, allied itself with the ODM-Kenya, which also split into two parties, one ODM led by Raila Odinga and the other ODM-Kenya by Kalonzo Musyoka.[2] The major contestants for the presidential elections were Mwai Kibaki of the PNU coalition, Raila Odinga of ODM and Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM-Kenya.