Many Kenyans now perceive Deputy President William Ruto as the most active and effective opposition leader in the country.
A new poll by Trends and Insights For Africa (TIFA) research released on Wednesday, December 15, indicated that 36 per cent of the respondents believed that Ruto played a more active opposition role.
Only 24 per cent of the respondents believed that former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, the head of the official opposition party Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), played a more active opposition role.
40 per cent of the respondents, however, correctly pinpointed ODM as the official opposition party with only 14 per cent identifying United Democratic Alliance (UDA) as an opposition party.
The poll further ranked UDA as the most popular party with 30 per cent support ahead of ODM which has a paltry 16 per cent support. Jubilee came in third with just 5 per cent.
Over the last sixteen months, the two most dramatic changes in the popularity of political parties have been the decline of Jubilee popularity index from 40 per cent.
The other change is rapid rise of UDA from nothing to 30 per cent, making it currently the most popular party.
33 per cent of respondents affiliated to UDA party also reported that they believe that government resources would be used to influence the upcoming 2022 General Election in favour of Raila, while 31 per cent from ODM reported the same.
Regarding the poor turnout in the recently concluded voter registration exercise, most of the respondents reported that they skipped the exercise due to lack of interest in politics. Some lacked identification cards while others were too busy to spare time for the registration.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) only registered a total of 1.6 million new voters from a target of 4.5 million.
In Nairobi, Johnson Sakaja is leading the pack with 30 per cent support for the Gubernatorial seat, while Esther Passaris comes in second with 11 per cent and Tim Wanyonyi third with 6 per cent.
Most responders in Nairobi reported unemployment, lack of water and electricity and high cost of living as the main problems bedevilling the system.
All the findings included in the report were taken from the national survey TIFA Research conducted between November 7 and November 13, 2021.
The survey covered a variety of important economic, political, and social welfare public issues.
The research sampled 1,519 respondents drawn from Central Rift, Coast, Lower Eastern, Mt Kenya, Nairobi, Northern, Nyanza, South Rift, and Western.
