President Uhuru Kenyatta. [Photo/ Hapa Kenya]
If the elections were to be held today, a new opinion poll shows, President Uhuru Kenyatta would get 53% of the votes cast, while Raila Odinga follows with 42%. The poll, released by the Centre for African progress (CAP), revealed that about 5% of registered voters have not yet made up their minds on who they are going to vote for on August 8, 2017. According to CAP operations manager Abel Oyieyo — who released the survey findings — at least 35% of voters believe President Kenyatta will fulfill his campaign promises if re-elected. Those who trust Mr Odinga, the ODM presidential candidate, to get the job done stood at 33%. “Kenyatta high ratings as revealed by the respondents are attributed to the Standard Gauge Railway project, the free maternity scheme and the laptop project, though in some places,” Mr Oyieyo said, as per Capital News. More than 9,995 respondents, selected randomly from across the 47 counties, were interviewed between July 24-27. This represents one of the largest sample sizes in polls conducted in the recent past. The research findings showed President Kenyatta, of the Jubilee Party, would beat the ODM leader in North Eastern, Eastern, Rift Valley and Central. Mr Odinga enjoys support in Nyanza and parts of Western Kenya. An overwhelming majority of those polled — 85% — vowed to cast their votes on Tuesday next week, with about 10% planning to boycott the exercise.“When you pick the percentages and focus on a voter turnout of 85 percent, Kenyatta will get 7,971,630, Odinga gets 6,289,426 and all the other candidates put together including the undecided they get 844, 183. With these numbers, it will be a one-round election,” said Oyieyo, as quoted by Capital News.A majority of those polled gave the president a thumbs up for his efforts to promote a peaceful election process. The survey, which was done through face-to-face interviews, had a 1.29% margin of error.