Raila’s Cord team to beat Jubilee, says poll

By Geoffrey Mosoku

NAIROBI; KENYA: The political alliance bringing together ODM’s Raila Odinga and Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka has the strongest position ahead of the March 4 presidential poll, according to an opinion poll.

However, the number of undecided voters has grown larger, indicating this state of affairs could change within the official election campaign period. The findings of this first survey since the formal creation of four new pre-election coalitions are likely to send unexpected shockwaves through the political arena.

If voting were held today between the two groups alone, the Coalition of Reforms and Democracy alliance would beat any pair put forward by the rival Jubilee alliance, assuming it had Raila for president with Kalonzo as his running mate.

Raila Odinga (34 per cent) and Uhuru Kenyatta (27 per cent) remain the most popular individual aspirants for president.

However, a record 22 per cent of those interviewed by pollster Ipsos-Synovate reported they were undecided about any of the nine main candidates.

This figure was up from 13 per cent just last month before the creation of the four main alliances in the 2013 race. Figures released by pollster Ipsos-Synovate showed the Cord team has an edge over the Jubilee coalition in recognition and potential support.

In a head-to-head matchup that did not involve other parties, only 12 per cent of sampled voters were undecided. Most said they would vote Cord in various scenarios.

Possible scenario

In a possible scenario where Raila is twinned with Kalonzo and pitted against an Uhuru/William Ruto ticket, the pollster found that 47 per cent of Kenyans would vote Raila/Kalonzo while 41 per cent would vote for the later.

A Raila/Kalonzo ticket would also trounce a Musalia Mudavadi/Ruto ticket by a comfortable margin of 10 points (48 per cent against 38). With other individual candidates in the race, however, these coalitions will not perform as strongly, raising the likelihood of the presidential election going to a run-off.

The research, done via phone interviews of 1,625 respondents also gave a breakdown on the fortunes of each coalition in key regions. Raila still commands a lead with 34 per cent rating in individual popularity, followed by Uhuru with 27 per cent, each having gained a percentage each from the last poll. Mudavadi follows a distant third place (five per cent) with Assistant Minister Peter Kenneth at his elbow (four per cent).

The fortunes of Kalonzo and Ruto have dipped with Kalonzo scoring three per cent against eight per cent previously and Ruto two per cent against nine per cent.  Narc-Kenya leader Martha Karua polled one per cent.

Tom Wolf, of pollster Ipsos-Synovate, attributed the drop in Ruto and Kalonzo’s popularity rating to the assumption that both will end up being running mates.

Ruto has sealed a deal to be the running mate in Jubilee alliance whereas Kalonzo is widely believed to be the PM’s running mate.  However, the support the two have lost does not seem to have automatically gone to the perceived presidential candidates but rather to the undecided category.

Wait-and-see attitude

“Their supporters appear to have adopted a wait-and-see attitude before choosing where to belong. And for the politicians, much needs to be put in place to woo this category of the undecided which rose from 12 per cent in November to 22 per cent this month,” Wolf added.

When asked of their awareness of the current political alliances, 85 per cent mentioned the Cord alliance with another 80 per cent mentioning the Jubilee alliance. About 22 per cent of the respondents mentioned the Peter Kenneth/Raphael Tuju alliance, while 11 per cent are aware of the Eugene Wamalwa, Cyrus Jirongo, and Nicholas Biwot alliance.

On coalitions, 93 per cent of Raila’s supporters, and 73 per cent of Kalonzo supporters approves Cord.

Jubilee alliance got an approval of 94 per cent, 91 and 68 by Uhuru, Ruto and Mudavadi supporters respectively.

The opinion poll findings come as both major coalitions prepare to name their presidential candidates next week on Tuesday (Jubilee), and Cord on Saturday.