Washington, DC — An exit poll that has not been released publicly reportedly shows that Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga was leading President Mwai Kibaki by a significant margin on election day last month.

The International Republican Institute, a United States-based democracy promotion foundation, commissioned poll. The results, reported by both Slate and McClatchy newspapers, show Odinga won by between eight and nine percentage points.

The poll contradicts the official result of the election, in which Kibaki won by about three percentage points.

IRI President Lorne Craner told McClatchy that the results of the poll have not been released because the organization questions its validity. The Kenyan firm which carried out the poll had earlier done two opinion polls for the IRI, but staffers discovered the firm was not gathering information in some areas. The institute was unable to determine what areas were not represented in the poll.

A senior Western official who had seen partial results, however, told McClatchy newspapers that the results looked credible.

"What it tells me is there was an exit poll that had one candidate with a significant lead who, at the end of the day, was not declared the victor. That seems to me to be a little surprising," the official said.

Slate's Alex Halperin, who first reported the exit poll on January 3, criticized IRI for not releasing the results, stating that IRI "missed an opportunity to advance its mission of promoting democracy and fair elections." IRI has already released a statement criticizing the vote tallying, acknowledging "serious questions about the manner in which the vote tabulation was managed."