Jeff Otieno
25 July 2008
Nairobi — A new opinion poll places Prime Minister Raila Odinga ahead of his principal partner, President Kibaki in performance in the Grand Coalition Government.
According to the poll conducted by the Steadman Group, Mr Odinga has an approval rating of 75 per cent compared to President Kibaki’s 68 and the Grand Coalition Government’s 65.
The study coincides with 100 days since the formation of the coalition that brought together political rivals President Kibaki and Mr Odinga. It means that most Kenyans interviewed by the pollsters view Mr Odinga positively when performing his duties compared to President Kibaki or the Government as a whole.
The study, which was conducted between July 6 and 11, interviewed a total of 2,012 Kenyans aged 18 years and above in the country’s eight provinces. It had a +/-2.2 margin of error and a 95 per cent confidence level.
Explaining the poll's findings, Steadman Group's political consultant, Dr Tom Wolf said Mr Odinga received the highest of positive approvals compared to the Head of State.
“Many Kenyans placed Mr Odinga on the 'highly approve' and 'somewhat approve' categories ahead of President Kibaki,” Dr Wolf said during the release of the survey results at the organisation's headquarters in Nairobi.
However, the political analyst said any leader in the world should be happy with an approval rating of over 50 per cent especially under a difficult political arrangement like the one in Kenya.
Apart from performance, Dr Wolf said many ODM supporters are still hostile to President Kibaki as a result of the outcome of last year’s presidential election.
“Unlike ODM supporters many PNU supporters view Mr Odinga mildly since their candidate was sworn in as the President hence have nothing much against the Prime Minister,” he added.
Dr Wolf said the approval rating of the Grand Coalition was above 50 per cent mainly because of saving the country from plunging into war rather than what it has so far done in the past six months.
In fact, majority of Kenyans (78 per cent) support the power sharing agreement. At the political party level, the agreement receives the highest rating from both PNU and ODM-K faithful at 80 percent each, with ODM followers giving it a 76 per cent score.
On the provincial level, Mr Odinga’s ratings are higher than President Kibaki’s in five of the eight provinces.
The PM leads his principal partner in Nairobi, Coast, Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western. President Kibaki’s ratings are higher in Central, Eastern and North Eastern. Individually, the two principals score highly than government in all the provinces except North Eastern where the grand coalition scores a high of 80 per cent. In the province, President Kibaki scores 78 per cent, three more than Mr Odinga.
So far Kenyans are satisfied with the grand coalition’s performance in secondary and primary education, in which it scores 78 and 70 per cent respectively.
However, the study was conducted before student riots became widespread, affecting secondary education.
Kenyans are also happy with the way the government is handling health matters, with the respondents giving it a satisfaction rating of 65 per cent, followed by electrification programme (58 per cent), water supply (58 per cent) and road construction and rehabilitation (55 per cent). The public, nonetheless, is unhappy with the way the government is handling the rising poverty levels, unemployment, the skyrocketing food prices, corruption in the public sector and crime. All have an approval of below 50 per cent.
According to the survey, the public also wants the government to give more attention to the resettlement of internally displaced refugees, constitutional reform, investigation of election violence and tackling the land question.
Of the three political parties forming the grand coalition, most Kenyans identify themselves with Orange Democratic Movement (53 per cent), followed by Party of National Unity at 29 per cent.
ODM-Kenya is at seven per cent, other smaller parties (four per cent), while a further seven percent do not align themselves with any political party.
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