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NEWS EXTRA                                         
        
Raila Maintains lead in weekly opinion polls

Story by SUNDAY NATION Writer       
Publication Date: 10/7/2007                                                   
                                      
Orange Democratic Movement presidential candidate Mr Raila Odinga maintains his lead in the opinion polls this week, according to three surveys commissioned by the Sunday Nation.

All the polls show Mr Odinga extending his lead compared to last week. Two showed the Party of National Unity candidate President Kibaki losing marginally while another has him gaining a percentage point.

Strategic Public Relations and Research (SPRR) reported Mr Odinga ahead with 49.6 per cent, followed by President Kibaki with 39.6 per cent and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka with 10.8 per cent.

The corresponding figures from Infotrack Harris poll show 46 per cent for Mr Odinga, 35 per cent for President Kibaki and 15 per cent for Mr Musyoka.

The Consumer Insight poll puts Mr Odinga ahead with 46 per cent, followed by President Kibaki with 41 per cent and Mr Musyoka with 13 per cent.

The regional hue of the likely voting pattern is also not much different from last week's polls. Mr Odinga leads in most provinces except Central. Both Consumer Insight and Infotrack Harris find that the President’s lead is only in Central Province, while SPRR gives him Eastern Province as well.

All polls show Mr Odinga leading in Nyanza, Nairobi, Rift Valley, Western, Coast, and North Eastern. Mr Musyoka holds his ground only in Eastern Province, though the SPRR poll has Mr Kibaki with a slight edge there.

But despite the President’s heightened activity in the Rift Valley that gave his supporters hope that he could be closing the gap, the poll results hardly show this to be the case. An example is the Infotrack Harris poll, which shows Mr Odinga steady while Mr Kibaki gains one per cent.

Another interesting detail given by the Consumer Insight poll is on Bungoma, which is probably the President’s only hope in Western Province. But the poll finds that the district is more or less evenly split between him and Mr Odinga (50 per cent to 48 per cent). The polls were conducted between September 29 and October 2 and covered the entire country.

These series of opinion polls, done by three leading research companies, have been commission by the Sunday Nation to run for a couple of weeks.

   Consumer Insight
   Infortrak Research & Consulting
   Strategic PR & Research Limited