Raila Odinga address participants during a farewell reception of UN Habitat Executive Director Ann Tibaijuka..
THE latest opinion poll by Infotrak released yesterday showed Prime Minister Raila Odinga is still the front runner for president with 35.4 per cent support compared to 24.0 percent for Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.
Infotrak CEO Angela Ambitho said the poll was undertaken between October 29 and November 1 with a sample size of 1500 respondents in 24 counties who represented the adult population of 19 million with a margin error of plus or minus 2.53 percent and a 95 percent degree of confidence.
Eldoret North MP William Ruto with 10.3 percent support, and then Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi with 10.0 percent, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka with 8.8 per cent and Martha Karua with 4.3 percent.
Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth had 2.0 percent, Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa 1.3 percent, Water minister Charity Ngilu 0.5 percent and Raphael Tuju 0.5 per cent.
If Uhuru, Ruto, Wamalwa and Ngilu managed to combine all their votes to support a single candidate, their combined vote would be 36.1 percent. This would put them just ahead of Raila, if he ran alone.
But if Raila teamed up with Kalonzo Musyoka, their combined support would be 44.2 percent, not far off the 50 per cent needed for victory.
The research implies that Team Uhuru may have picked the wrong partners for their alliance launched this week. Musyoka would appear to control far more Kamba votes than Ngilu, while Mudavadi appears much stronger than Wamalwa in Western.
Originally Mudavadi and Musyoka were expected to be in the Uhuru team but have apparently been passed over in preference for Wamalwa and Ngilu in recent weeks.
Raila’s popularity has dropped by 1.2 per cent since the last Infotrak survey in June while Uhuru has jumped by 2.1 per cent. The biggest gainer appears to be Mudavadi whose support has been steadily climbing since the February Infotrak survey when he had just 3.0 percent support.
Raila’s ODM remains the most popular political party with 39 percent support followed by Uhuru’s TNA ( only launched in May) at 25 percent, Ruto’s URP 11, Mudavadi’s UDF 10, Musyoka’s Wiper 7 and Karua’s Narc Kenya 3 percent.