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17 percent of Kenyans polled said they will expect their next President to be open minded, 15 percent said they would looking to a transparent, honest and trustworthy/FILE

Kenya

Kenyans will choose leaders with high integrity: Poll

17 percent of Kenyans polled said they will expect their next President to be open minded, 15 percent said they would looking to a transparent, honest and trustworthy/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya Jul 8- An opinion poll conducted by Infotrak-Harris Research and Consulting indicates that 35 percent of Kenyans will be looking for a person of high integrity and development conscious as their next president when they go to the next polls.

Infotrak Harris Chief Executive Officer Angela Ambitho said 17 percent of Kenyans polled said they will expect their next President to be open minded, 15 percent said they would looking to a transparent, honest and trustworthy person while 13 percent would vote in a visionary leader.

“One of the key things that we hold as dear and key to us is hard work and career success. So we believe in working hard, in fact leisure time has taken such a low importance rating because we can’t afford it – not within the economic conditions that we have,” Ambitho explained.

“So we want to see a leader who is as hard working as we are, waking up early and going to sleep late and making sure that things are done,” she added.

At the same time, Ambitho said it was unfair for politicians to castigate pollsters whenever they are not satisfied with the outcome of the polls.

“It is not us (speaking), it is Kenyans. When they do it i – think – they are telling Kenyans that I don’t care what you think, because this is your view (Kenyans), and quite frankly I don’t think anybody else to know what you think either, and that why they continue to cast doubt to the number we spew out as pollsters,” Ambitho stated.

Last week Narc-Kenya aspirant and Gichugu MP Martha Karua rubbished the low approval ratings released by pollsters recently, the latest being the poll by Infotrak-Harris that placed her in sixth position with 3.9 percent.

“We are perturbed neither by pollsters nor opinion polls. They are just Kenyans trying to earn a living in a difficult economic environment. My faith and fate is in the hands of the many Kenyans who encourage me and who we continue to rally together around shared values, aspirations and dreams of a greater Kenya,” Karua said when she countered the pollsters findings.

The Infotrak Harris May poll was conducted between 17th and 19th May, 2012. A sample of 2400 respondents were interviewed across the country.

The findings sharply contrasted with another poll conducted between March 11th and 13th to assess the national values of Kenyans where a majority of those sampled at 82 percent favoured material wealth as the most important principle of value.

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Ambitho said a majority of Kenyans are concerned about success in their careers and financial security with pleasure being the least important.

“It perhaps gives us an insight on how we are going to determine various things in our lives and I think for me critically is how we are going to determine our leaders. So that if material wealth and financial security are the key things then how I’m going to determine who leads me,” Ambitho posed.

“The most important principle as noted by a majority of Kenyans at an incidence level of 8.21 was material wealth, with more of them being the females (8.38) compared to males (8.07),” she said on Sunday.

Although politics was found to be at the bottom of the list of priorities, there was an improvement in concern over the issue from 62.2 percent in 2010 to 73.6 percent this year.

“That improvement is only natural because we are already in an election year and many people are paying special attention to what happens around them politically,” Ambitho explained.

Work, family and money top the list at 99.2, 94.8 and 92.6 percent respectively.

Ambitho said that based on the findings, a candidate with more material wealth is likely to have the most appeal to the electorate since it is the value against which a majority assigned more importance.

Apart from integrity and development consciousness, the electorate will also be looking for transparency, honesty and vision in their leaders whom they also want to be non-tribal and educated.

Many did not show much concern for the age or gender of the aspirants with the qualities recording only 1 percent each.

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The survey also found a majority of youth aspire for a comfortable life that is stress free.

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