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Raila Odin­ga, a for­mer prime min­is­ter of Kenya and peren­ni­al pres­i­den­tial can­di­date whose pop­ulist cam­paigns chal­lenged one-par­ty rule, rat­tled au­thor­i­ties and gave him out­sized in­flu­ence on po­lit­i­cal life in the East African coun­try, died Wednes­day of a heart at­tack while trav­el­ing in In­dia. He was 80.

His death was con­firmed by De­va­matha Hos­pi­tal in Ker­ala State, where he was tak­en af­ter he col­lapsed dur­ing a morn­ing walk. A hos­pi­tal state­ment said Odin­ga didn’t re­spond to re­sus­ci­ta­tion ef­forts.

There were somber scenes at his home in the Kenyan cap­i­tal, Nairo­bi, where mourn­ers in­clud­ed na­tion­al lead­ers. Trib­utes cit­ed his com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy.