New Kenyan poll puts No in the lead

Written By:Collins Anampiu , Posted: Sat, Jul 31, 2010


Barely a day after two opinion polls put the Yes camp on a comfortable lead in the run-up to the August 4 referendum, a new opinion poll by a hitherto unknown company calling itself East Africa Dataline has put the No team in the lead for the first time since the commencement of the referendum campaigns.

According to a survey released by the company Saturday, 53% of those polled reject the proposed constitution while 47% would say Yes in the referendum.

The survey that sampled 5400 respondents across the country comes barely a day after Strategic Research and TNS Research International polled 66% and 68% respectively for the Yes camp with the No trailing by 20% and 25%.

According to Konoin MP Julius Kones who is firmly in the No camp, the survey was based on the 2007 voting patterns across the 8 provinces.

The poll indicates that Rift Valley province has the highest number of those opposed to the proposed constitution with 79% followed by Eastern province with 66%.

Nyanza province leads with 73% of those supporting the proposed law followed by Western province at 64%.

However the poll seems to be markedly inconsistent with previous polls conducted by various research companies which have constantly shown the Yes team leading by a steady margin.