NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 11 — Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has dismissed a newly published opinion polls giving Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga a three-point lead over Kenya Kwanza’s William Ruto.
Mutua who is among party chiefs who founded the Azimio coalition before ditching the outfit alongside his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi (Pamaja Africa Alliance) said the polls were part of a scheme to engineer a plan to reject the outcome of the August 9 presidential election.
He claimed Odinga’s coalition was planning to arm-twist Ruto into forming a coalition government after contesting the outcome.
“Leaked reports by intelligence officers to us plus from the people Azimio are using to conduct polls indicate they are losing & they know it. Now they are getting DESPERATE,” the Maendeleo Chap Chap leader tweeted.
“I am a believer of opinion polling. However, what we are witnessing is a campaign to create a perception that Raila Odinga is ahead so as to soften the ground to allow for rejection of the elections by Azimio and to force formation of a coalition Government,” he added.
Mutua said the Ruto-led alliance was confident of clinching the presidency without a rerun by attaining the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent +1 of votes cast.
“As Kenya Kwanza, we have three constant pollsters who conduct both daily, village and polling station based “dip” polls and weekly comprehensive polls,” he said.
The study conducted by Trends and Insights For Africa (TIFA) reported a three-point gap between the two top contenders for the presidential election placing Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga at 42 per cent ahead of William Ruto (UDA) at 39 per cent.
The poll released on Monday projected the proportion of undecided voters at 10 per cent with Roots Party’s presidential candidate George Wajackoyah, who gained significantly from Odinga’s pie according to the poll, increasing his popularity index to 4 per cent.
TIFA lead researcher Tom Wolf said both Odinga and Ruto had gained support since the last survey conducted in mid-May, which had placed Odinga at 39 per cent and Ruto at 35 per cent.
“Odinga maintains a very narrow lead over Ruto (42 per cent vs. 39 per cent), actually falling within the survey’s margin-of-error (+/-2.7%),” stated Wolf while giving an analysis of the poll that saw 1,533 respondents interviewed between June 25 and 30.
“David Mwaure of the Agano party failed to elicit more than miniscule support in this survey,” he added.
The survey also reported a 10 per cent gender gap among Azimio supporters with 47 per cent of Odinga’s supporters being male voters against 37 identified as women.
TIFA found Ruto’s base to be nearly gender even with 40 per cent on likely voters supporting him being male and 38 per cent identified as female.
“Odinga consistently has more male supporters even after naming Karua as his running mate,” stated Wolf.