Harvard dons say neither Uhuru nor Raila attained 50 pc vote

By Felix Olick

NAIROBI, KENYA: An exit poll during the March 4 polls claims that there was a statistical tie between CORD leader Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta with both failing to hit the 50 per cent plus one mark.

The poll conducted by two US political scientists puts Raila ahead at 40.9 per cent while Uhuru who was declared the winner of the presidential contest, at 40.6 per cent.

Surprisingly, the poll almost accurately predicted the votes secured by then Amani presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi and Alliance for Real Change candidate Abduba Dida.

The poll had predicted that Mudavadi would score 3.74 per cent of the votes but from the resultsby the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Mudavadi scored 3.93 per cent.

However, the poll accurately predicted the outcome for Dida, who garnered 0.43 per cent of the votes as was predicted by the pollster.

However, the poll also shows that 11.8 per cent of Kenyans included in the survey refused to indicate for whom they had voted for in the historic presidential race.

According to the survey, the results represent a statistical tie between the two top contenders since due to the survey’s margin of error.

50 plus 1

Harvard University professor James D Long who was one of the researchers maintained that neither Uhuru nor Raila could score the requisite 50 per cent plus one vote as required by law even if the margin of error was slightly higher.

Prof Long is also the author of the paper, Determinants of Ethnic Voting, which is part of a book he is working on examining how elections undermine or buttress democracy and accountability.

Regarding the March 4 Kenya’s General Election, Prof Long said: “Even taking account of various statistical uncertainties, there is no reasonable assumption that gets either candidate to 50 per cent,” Long said this while releasing the results of the exit poll on Thursday at a Washington think-tank forum. The researcher termed as a statistical myth that Uhuru seriously benefited from a comparatively higher turnout in Kikuyu-dominated parts of the country.

“The contention that Kenyatta benefited from a comparatively much higher turnout in Kikuyu-dominated parts of the country was shown through the exit poll to be a myth,” Long insisted.

IEBC results

The two Researchers, however, remained mum on likely causes of the discrepancy between their survey’s results and the final results released by the Isaac Hassan-led commission.

However, the pollsters had no evidence of vote rigging in terms of stuffing of ballot papers or vote buying.

While responding to a question by a member of the audience why the results Kenyan election could be invalid, Long retorted, ““Because people broke the law when they counted votes.”

The IEBC switched from the electronic transmission and tallying of results to the manual after the latter collapsed.

However, the Supreme Court later ruled that it was not illegal for the electoral commission to switch to the manual system after the electronic one failed.

The survey showed that 83 per cent of the Kikuyu voted for Uhuru, while 94 per cent of the Luo voted for Raila.

From the Kamba, according to the poll, Raila got 63 per cent for while Uhuru got 12 per cent.

However, Raila got 11 per cent from the Kalenjin, while Uhuru scored 74 per cent.

Raila has always insisted that the election was not free and fair. On Friday, he made a scathing attack on Chief Justice Willy Mutunga over the Supreme Court judgement that dismissed his petition.

Raila has also insisted that the IEBC has lost the confidence of Kenyans and cannot be trusted to steer the country’s next election in 2017.

During their titanic court battle Raila insisted that from the Forms 34 and 36, it was clear Uhuru’s votes were intentionally inflated while his were reduced in an apparent trend to “meet a given threshold”.

The former Prime Minister had also demanded a forensic audit of the entire electronic system used in the March 4 presidential election, but the Supreme Court declined to grant his request.