WILL RAILA WIN IN THE FIRST ROUND WITH KALONZO AS RUNNING MATE??

New poll predicts if Odinga manages to get Kalonzo or Mudavadi to be running mate he will triumph over Kenyatta-Ruto coalition

The latest opinion poll released by  paints a picture where to get to State House Uhuru Kenyatta must cling to Eldoret North MP William Ruto for running mate at whatever cost.

Like the polls on last week’s US election between President Barack Obama and Republican’s Mitt Romney, Infotrak’s research says the race will be very close with the winner and loser separated by between two and four percentage points; but only if the other three aspirants, Kalonzo, Mudavadi and Ruto — switch their support for either of Raila or Uhuru, but not all of them behind one candidate.

It also showed that despite the hiccup that beset procurement of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits, 77 per cent of Kenyans still believe that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is prepared for the national exercise on March 4 next year.

But the Infotrak poll also forecasts that if elections were held today, Prime Minister Raila Odinga would beat Uhuru were he to pick Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi or Ruto as a running mate by taking 52 per cent of the vote.

However, in all the cases the win will be dependent on whether these aspirants, who have declared they would remain in the race to the end, will agree to drop their bid for State House.

But if Raila teams up with Musalia and Uhuru’s running mate is Kalonzo, the PM will win by 52 per cent against Uhuru’s 48 per cent even if the Gatundu South MP teams up with Kalonzo or Ruto.

The Infotrak poll carried out in October also revealed a Raila-Ruto ticket would also beat the one featuring Uhuru and Kalonzo by a similar margin, while Raila-Mudavadi will get 52 per cent as opposed to Uhuru-Ruto at 48 per cent.

A Raila-Mudavadi ticket will still win, albeit with a reduced victory margin of 51 per cent as opposed to the one of Uhuru and Kalonzo at 49 per cent in a two horse race.

But it is the scenario featuring Raila and Kalonzo that will generate a lot of interest; now that talk is rife the two are geared towards presenting a joint ticket with the latter as the running mate. With the falling out of the Wiper Democratic Party with the G7 Alliance, Kalonzo seems to be heading for a possible merger with either Raila or Mudavadi.

The poll also revealed Kalonzo would boost Raila’s support in the Coast and North Eastern regions, while votes in Nairobi and Nyanza remained constantly high for PM regardless of who his running mate is.

Another poll released by Infotrak on Friday, showed that a Raila-Kalonzo coalition would gain 66 per cent and 63 per cent against an Uhuru-Ruto coalition in Nairobi and Nyanza respectively.

A Raila-Ruto coalition would garner 80 per cent and 65 per cent against an Uhuru-Kalonzo ticket in the regions respectively.

The same poll indicated that a Raila-Musalia ticket would be at 74 per cent and 65 per cent against Uhuru-Ruto ticket and a Raila- Musalia coalition would get 76 per cent and 64 per cent against Uhuru Kalonzo coalition.

In yesterday’s poll, it was revealed that should Uhuru and Ruto face Raila, it would only capture 28 per cent of the total votes in Coast Province, North Eastern (17), Nyanza (34), Eastern (46) and Nairobi at 37 per cent respectively.

But interestingly, the poll predicted Uhuru would win a two-horse race with Raila if the PM has Speaker Kenneth Marende, Kenya National Congress aspirant Peter Kenneth or Water Minister Charity Ngilu by between four and eight percentage points.

It goes ahead to predict that if Uhuru and Ruto aren’t running and Raila teams up with Kalonzo, while on the Uhuru-Ruto axis, Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa is the candidate and Ngilu the running mate, Odinga will win at 67 per cent against the Wamalwa-Ngilu ticket projected 33 per cent of the votes cast.

Raila would also beat a Mudavadi-Ngilu combination if he picks ODM chairman Henry Kosgey as running mate by 56 per cent against the other pair’s 44 per cent.

The biggest beneficiary of votes if any of the top three presidential candidates do not run would be Mudavadi who would gain 27, 20 and 13 per cent from Raila, Ruto and Uhuru respectively.

The poll showed in case of Uhuru’s absence his votes would go to Ruto, Kalonzo, Musalia, Narc-Kenya party leader Martha Karua, Kenneth and Raila at 34, 12, 12, 9, 5 and 2 per cent respectively. Ruto’s 10.3 per cent votes would be shared among Uhuru (28 per cent), Mudavadi (20), Raila (16), Kalonzo (11) and Wamalwa (2) in that order. Raila, who has the highest presidential percentage at 35.4 per cent, would have his majority votes go to Mudavadi at 27 per cent and Uhuru would get the least votes from him at 5 per cent.

Infotrak polls last Friday indicated PM maintained his lead with 35.4 per cent. will kalonzo merge with the ODM leader in a bid to secure his interests??? only time will tell.