Road map to Obama victory
Senator Barack Obama looked poised to win the race for the US presidency with opinion polls showing he might get 306 electoral college votes compared to his rival’s 157.
Senator Obama, whose father was a Kenyan, has also been leading his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, with a five-point margin in the polls.
With just five days to the US election Reuters/Zogby pollsters showed Mr Obama on the verge of victory, with 49 points against Mr McCain’s 44.
Another opinion poll carried out in the 50 states on battle for the 538 electoral college votes (see map) showed Mr Obama leading with 306 votes against Mr McCain’s 157 with only 75 toss up votes, which could go either way.
The poll was carried out between October 23 and 27.
Electoral college
However, civil rights and trade union leaders have warned of a possible attempt to lock out pro-Obama voters during Tuesday’s elections.
Meanwhile, police are enforcing a decision by Senator Obama’s family to bar the media from his grandmother’s home in Kogelo Village, Siaya.
His family decided to lock out the media until after the US election, to give his grandmother, Mrs Sarah Obama, and other relatives the privacy they need to monitor the run-up to Tuesday’s election.
US voters do not directly elect their president. Instead, in all states except two, the candidate who wins the popular vote is allotted all the electoral votes in that state.
The number of the electoral college votes in each state is determined by the number of people in the state (see the figure on the left).
A candidate only needs 270 votes to win and Sen Obama has 36 more than this magical number, according to the opinion polls.
Deny victory
Union groups are warning that pro-Obama supporters could be locked out of the voting process.
“This year has brought heightened efforts to disenfranchise and intimidate voters,” said Mr Wade Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
“These are targeted and insidious attempts to suppress the vote, particularly in communities of colour.”
Journalists from countries as far as Japan, the US and UK, among others, have been camping at Kogelo to report on the family whose son is likely to become the first African-American president.
Senator Obama is the son of Obama Snr, who has since died, and who hailed from Siaya, and an American mother, Mrs Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas.
At the Siaya home, access for visitors was restricted with journalists being barred from taking pictures or interviewing Senator Obama’s relatives.
Journalists from the Nation, unaware of the embargo, ran into trouble with police officers when photographer Jacob Owiti was briefly held at the police post inside the home as he tried to take photographs.
According Mr Obama’s Uncle, Mr Saidi Obama, the family would address a press conference on November 5, irrespective of the outcome of the elections.
That means that the battery of local and international journalists, who have been trooping to the home to get interviews with the 86-year-old Sarah Obama, will have to wait until the results of the elections are announced.
Siaya police boss Johnston Ipara said security officers would enforce the embargo to ensure that the family’s privacy was guaranteed.
“We do not want Mama Sarah Obama to be disturbed at the moment she needs time to monitor the elections as they unfold,” he said.
Visitors will be subjected to thorough screening before they can be allowed to into the family home, which was placed under police security in September after a failed burglary attempt.
A barbed wire fence has also been erected around the homestead.
The police set up a patrol base at the homestead to prevent what Mr Ipara at the time termed as “danger to the Obama family.”
Since then, access has been limited to outsiders who have to undergo rigorous security checks by the armed Administration Police officers who have set up a base at the home.
Media interest
From a sleepy village hardly known beyond Siaya District before 2004, Nyang’oma Kogelo has become the subject of media interest both locally and internationally after Mr Obama declared his interest to seek the Democratic ticket for the White House.
The Illinois senator grew up in the US, but has been travelling to Kenya to visit his grandmother and other relatives.
His 2006 visit was the most publicised, coming only eight months after Mr Obama was elected to the Senate.
In a public lecture at the University of Nairobi at that time, Mr Obama said corruption in Kenya was “a crisis”.
