Swing zones up for grabs as Nasa gains

Ipsos lead researcher Tom Wolf announces opinion poll results on presidential elections, at the firm's offices in Nairobi on May 30, 2017. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The poll gave the Jubilee Party duo of President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto 47 per cent of the vote against 42 per cent for the Nasa ticket of Mr Odinga and running mate Kalonzo Musyoka.
  • The tables might be turned, with Jubilee dismissing the polls as ‘cooked’ and Nasa purring with delight.

Even though the latest Ipsos opinion poll shows Mr Raila Odinga still trailing President Uhuru Kenyatta were the presidential election held now, the main challenger should be quietly satisfied that he is closing the gap as August 8 approaches.

The poll gave the Jubilee Party duo of President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto 47 per cent of the vote against 42 per cent for the National Super Alliance (Nasa) ticket of Mr Odinga and running mate Kalonzo Musyoka.

That is a difference of just five per cent in a field where eight per cent of the voters were undecided.

The undecided, coupled with the margin of error — which the pollsters put at plus-or-minus 2.18 per cent but would, more realistically, be closer to five or six per cent given the vagaries of political opinion polling in Kenya — would put the outcome at a statistical dead heat.

WORRY JUBILEE

This should worry Jubilee, which has been happy with previous polls giving the incumbency a wide advantage; a boost for Nasa, which over the past few years has dismissed pollsters for giving them numbers that were not pleasing.

The tables might be turned, with Jubilee dismissing the polls as ‘cooked’ and Nasa purring with delight.

Whatever the reaction, there are lessons to take home for the two protagonists.

Both will be keen to figure out why the numbers have tilted so significantly in Nasa’s favour this year but remained stagnant for Jubilee.

RATING UNCHANGED

President Kenyatta’s rating is unchanged from the last Ipsos poll, in January, which had Mr Odinga at just 30 per cent.

Surveys by other pollsters were roughly in agreement.

There is one major explanation for the shift: The January poll and others in that period or earlier were taken when the public already knew that President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto would make up the Jubilee pairing.

By contrast, Nasa’s predecessor, Cord, had no presidential candidate then. Mr Odinga, of ODM, was hence put in the pot alongside Nasa coalition partners who were also eyeing the ticket — notably Mr Musyoka of Wiper, Mr Moses Wetang’ula (Ford-Kenya) and Amani’s Mr Musalia Mudavadi.

It can thus be presumed that the projected votes for the other three have now all lined up behind the Odinga-Musyoka ticket.

TRADITIONAL CLOSE VOTE

Another trend is the large undecided vote in some key battleground and swing regions.

The numbers in the table tell an interesting tale: The figures are not quite indicative of the traditional close vote in swing regions with Mr Odinga comfortably ahead in Western, Coast and Nairobi, ditto for President Kenyatta in Central.

But those are areas with fickle votes that could be persuaded to swing wildly.

Nairobi is in the list at 8 per cent undecided largely because of its large but unpredictable voting population, where just a small swing would have a significant effect.

UNDECIDED

The large undecided vote in Coast and Western, in particular, is telling. Both are opposition-leaning zones that Jubilee has strenuously tried to raid over the past couple of years.

Western stands out as the home turf of Mr Mudavadi, who in the last election helped to swing the balance in Jubilee’s favour by standing as a third-party presidential candidate and denying Mr Odinga a vote that would otherwise have been his for the taking.

His return to the Opposition fold should have swung the pendulum the other way but for that large undecided vote.

REMAINED INTACT

Then there is Eastern, which, ideally, pollsters should divide at into least two blocs for a more accurate representation: The Jubilee-leaning Upper Eastern affiliated to the Central Kenya vote and the Lower Eastern, essentially Ukambani, the turf of Nasa Deputy President candidate Musyoka.

Ipsos’s numbers do not reveal if Musyoka’s chunk has remained intact or whether Jubilee forays are paying off.

Finally, a large number of Kenyans on both sides of the party, regional and ethnic divides are unsatisfied with the state of the nation. Though they still remain loyal to their ingrained voting patterns, they might well be receptive to suitors bearing a better deal in regard to personal circumstances such as cost of living, and general confidence that the country will head in the right direction.