All signs are, race will end in a run-off

By JOHN NGIRACHU jngirachu@ke.nationmedia.com  ( email the author)

Posted  Tuesday, February 19  2013 at  21:15

In Summary

• Opinion polls over the last six months have consistently showed that the presidential race in the first round will be between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta

SHARE THIS STORY

 

 0
inShare

Opinion polls over the last six months have consistently showed that the presidential race in the first round will be between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mr Kenyatta, the presidential candidate of the Jubilee coalition, has been the biggest gainer in the polls over the six-month period.

Predictions of a run-off, which would happen if none of the candidates failed to get 50 per cent plus one of the votes cast, were made as early as last year, when Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta were backed by 44 per cent of respondents.

In October 2012, a poll by Ipsos Synovate indicated if the top two and Mr Odinga faced off in a run-off, Mr Kenyatta would get 50 per cent of the vote against Mr Odinga’s 42 per cent.

That poll was about run-off scenarios, and it said Mr Odinga would similarly lose if it was between him and Amani Coalition candidate Musalia Mudavadi by 47 against 44 per cent.

Later the same month, The Economist, a widely respected international weekly, published a poll by American firm Gallup indicating that Mr Odinga was ahead of the pack with 29 per cent of support against Mr Kenyatta’s 15 per cent and William Ruto’s 12 per cent.

Launch campaigns

All this was before the formation of the coalitions.

After they went into alliances, Infotrak published a poll on January 11 indicating that Mr Odinga would win the election outright in the first round as he would garner 51 per cent of the vote.

The Deputy Prime Minister and his Jubilee coalition were 12 percentage points behind, getting with 39 per cent of the votes.

With 51 days to the election then, candidates were yet to launch their campaigns full scale and the pollsters indicated that the poll conducted between December 28 last year and January 2, did not capture the impact Mr Mudavadi joining the Amani Coalition.

In polls after the presidential debate on February 11, Ispos Synovate reported that 40 per cent of those interviewed say they will vote for Mr Kenyatta if elections were held, Mr Odinga trailing him by seven percentage points.

Mr Kenyatta gained most from the debate as his ratings increased from 37 to 40 per cent, while Mr Odinga was the biggest loser, going from 37 to 33 per cent.

Researcher Tom Wolf, however, warned that the poll was not scientific as they had interviewed only those who watched the debate.