New poll shows confidence in Jubilee leadership on the rise

President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) with his deputy, William Ruto. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • This is despite terrorism and other security and corruption challenges facing the Jubilee government.
  • The poll mainly focused on economic conditions, the most serious problems, government performance and security issues
  • The Ipsos poll results released on Friday show that the two leaders had confidence levels 67 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively, by December 2014.
  • Kenyans also rank insecurity and terrorism as some of the most serious problems affecting the country today.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto still command massive public confidence levels, a new Ipsos poll shows.

This is despite terrorism and other security and corruption challenges facing the Jubilee government.

The Ipsos poll results released on Friday show that the two leaders had confidence levels of 67 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively, by December 2014.

Yet, Kenyans also rank insecurity and terrorism as some of the most serious problems affecting the country today (67 per cent of 2005 respondents).

These views are not generally influenced by party affiliation.

But these poll results, say the researchers, could change were people asked to respond to the same question especially after the passage of the security laws.

Dr Tom Wolf, a research analyst at Ipsos, said the survey showed that few people believe the Kenyan government can prosecute the big fish involved in corruption.

MAIN AREAS OF FOCUS

The poll mainly focused on economic conditions, the most serious problems facing the country, government performance and security issues.

On economic conditions, 41 per cent of the respondents said their household economic condition had worsened in the last three months.

This figure was, however, significantly lower than that obtained in the previous survey (52 per cent), and the lowest over the past year and half (the previous low being 49 per cent in June 2013).

At the same time, concerns about insecurity were high especially after the deadly Al-Shabaab attacks in Mandera in November 2014.

The concern with insecurity stood at 67 per cent.

This left other issues in single digits, with concerns about the high cost of inflation standing at seven per cent, corruption at six per cent and unemployment at five per cent.

On the achievements of the Jubilee government, the areas that earned the highest marks were health (23 per cent), improved infrastructure (19 per cent) and the education system (16 per cent).