WHY PICKING MARTHA KARUA AS A RUNNING MATE WAS A MISTAKE.

The Kenya Kwanza presidential ticket attracts more support from women than its rival Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition ticket, a new poll has revealed.

The poll by the Trends and Insights For Africa (TIFA) established that though Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga has a woman as his runningmate, his arch-rival William Ruto enjoys more support from females.

According to the poll results, the Raila-Karua ticker has 37% support from the female electorate compared to Ruto-Gachagua, whose support from women stands at 38%.

The poll’s findings indicated that despite Raila picking a female running mate, there has been no impact in increasing his support from women.

“Moreover, the addition of a female running-mate (Martha Karua) appears (so far at least)to have had no impact on increasing his support among women, as the current gender gap of 10% is identical to what it was in April before his picked her,” Tifa said.

On the other hand, more men are in support of Raila’s bid (47%), while Ruto’s support from men was found at 40%.

“…Odinga has a slight male advantage in this regard (a 10% margin as opposed to Ruto’s 2% margin). Overall, however, three times more women than men remain undecided (15% vs 5%),” the TIFA’s findings reported.

Similarly, the survey also established that Raila Odinga enjoys national support of 42% compared to William Ruto’s 39%.

Roots Party presidential candidate George Wajackoyah was ranked a distant third as his bid is supported by only 4% of the electorate.

A total of 1,533 electorates spread across Central Rift, Coast, Lower Eastern, Mt Kenya, Nairobi, Nothern, Nyanza, South Rift and Western zones of Kenya were polled.

The survey was conducted between June 25 and June 30.

By tuko