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Infotrak CEO Angela Ambitho said Odinga was also likely to win the presidency without a run-off if he picked Musalia Mudavadi as his deputy, and Kenyatta picked Ruto.

Kenya

There may not be a run-off, shows poll

Infotrak CEO Angela Ambitho said Odinga was also likely to win the presidency without a run-off if he picked Musalia Mudavadi as his deputy, and Kenyatta picked Ruto.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 11 – A new poll by research company Infotrak says Raila Odinga could clinch the presidency in the first round next year, depending on who he picks as his running mate.

The poll shows that an Odinga/ Kalonzo Musyoka ticket can clinch the presidency in round one with 52 percent of the votes if their main challengers were Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto on one ticket.

“There will be things that will be game changers; who you pick as your running mate and who you consolidate yourself with as your team. If those people are able to get you support from the different hives then all you need is 50 percent plus one vote to be win the presidential race,” Infotrak CEO Angela Ambitho explained during the release of the poll findings on Sunday.

If the PM were to pick Ruto as his running mate, they would clinch 52 percent of the votes against a Kenyatta/ Musyoka ticket which would garner 48 percent at the ballot.

Ambitho said Odinga was also likely to win the presidency without a run-off if he picked Musalia Mudavadi as his deputy, and Kenyatta picked Ruto. The Odinga/ Mudavadi ticket would get 52 percent of the votes.

However, an alliance between Odinga and Kalonzo would lose to a Kenyatta/Mudavadi ticket which would garner 51.6 percent of votes cast.

Odinga could lose the election to any of Kenyatta’s likely pairings if the PM picked Peter Kenneth, Martha Karua, or National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende.

Ambitho cautions that it is not automatic regional kingpins will deliver votes from their strongholds for many factors may come into play.

“We do see a situation where there is going to be dependence on who the running mate is determining how that region actually swings; we see that in Eastern and the Rift Valley. Unless their candidate of choice goes the round alone, we may then see North Eastern being swing and we also see a situation where the Rift (due to it cosmopolitan nature) being quite interesting due to the voting patterns,” she said.

The poll was interrogating various scenarios of Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta being the presidential candidates and picking any of the others who have so far declared interest in the seat as running mates.

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Various presidential candidates have in the recent weeks been engaged in talks to seal pre-election pacts in time to beat the December 4 deadline for coalition agreements to be deposited with Registrar of Political Parties.

An Odinga/Mudavadi joint ticket would beat that of Kenyatta/ Ruto by 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent. The poll shows Odinga/ Ruto pair would garner 52.3 percent against 47.7 percent of Kenyatta/ Musyoka ticket.

A race pitting Odinga/ Musyoka versus Kenyatta/ Ruto would result in 51.6 percent and 48.4 percent of votes respectively, the poll showed.

The pollsters also indicated that 34 percent of those who prefer Uhuru Kenyatta as their candidate would pick William Ruto as their alternative candidate should Uhuru not run.

The polls further indicated that 32 percent of Kenyans would prefer William Ruto to be Odinga’s running mate while 57 percent want him to be the running mate of DPM Uhuru Kenyatta.

Another poll showed that 57 percent of those polled would want Uhuru Kenyatta to be the running mate of William Ruto and 24 percent would want him to be the running mate of Mudavadi.

The survey by Infotrak Harris shows that 27 percent who prefer Raila Odinga as President would choose Musalia Mudavadi as their alternative candidate.

The poll says that 76 percent of those who polled believe that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will deliver a free and fair election come March 4th, 2013, with another 77 percent of the respondents expressing confidence in the electoral agency preparations.

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