Kenyans remain almost evenly split as far as their preference on Coalition of Reform and Democracy (Cord) leader Raila Odinga presidency is concerned.
At least 34 per cent of Kenyans want Raila to retire from politics completely, 35 per cent want him to remain active in his party and even contest the presidency if he wants while another 22 per cent said he should continue to lead or work with his political party but not contest the top seat.
The survey has also indicated that if presidential elections were held today, 40 per cent of Kenyans would vote for President Uhuru Kenyatta while 29 per cent would vote in Raila. Deputy President William Ruto came third with six per cent. Although Uhuru leads in this survey, the gap between him and Raila has somewhat narrowed down between August and November.
In August, Uhuru and Raila’s likelihood to win was at 52 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. This is in accordance with the Ipsos survey that targeted Kenyans aged 18 and above and a sample size of 2,058 living in urban and rural areas in 41 counties were interviewed. The margin of error attributed to sampling and other random effects for the sample as a whole is +/- 2.2 per cent with a 95 per cent confidence level.
Fieldwork was conducted between November 7 and 19. Releasing the findings of the survey research analyst, Tom Wolf said respondents gave varying reasons on why Raila should retire, which raised the question as to which opposition candidate would be more likely to win. He said the survey showed that none of the Opposition leaders has even one-sixth the vote support Raila currently enjoys.
The poll indicated that only six per cent would vote for Kalonzo Musyoka and two per cent for Moses Wetang’ula. “Opinions on this question show a clear contrast in terms of the country’s main political divide, however, even if only two-thirds of Cord supporters think he should contest again. This contrast is even more evident with regard to the reasons why those who do not want to contest feel this way,” said Wolf.
According to the survey, five times as many Jubilee supporters, 25 per cent, believe Raila would be “a bad president” and only five per cent of Cord supporters said he would be a bad President. Around 20 per cent of Cord supporters said Raila should not contest because if he wins, he would not be allowed to take power while only six per cent supported this.
35 per cent of Cord supporters also said Raila would lose the election and that another Opposition leader would have a better chance while 23 per cent of Jubilee supporters agreed to this.
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