20100730
allafrica

Nairobi — Sixty eight per cent of Kenyans will vote for the proposed Constitution, according to a survey released just five days to the referendum.

A survey released by TNS Research International Friday shows that 68 per cent of Kenya registered voters will cast their ballot in favour of the proposed law, while 25 per cent will reject it. A further seven per cent said they were undecided which way to vote on August 4.

The survey, conducted between July 23-25 and polling 1,600 respondents, shows an overwhelming majority of Kenyans will vote at the referendum on the proposed Constitution. Of those polled, 95 per cent said they will participate at the vote, while only three per cent said they will not vote.

Two per cent said they were unsure whether they will exercise their franchise. The poll shows that Yes has maintained its lead coming on the back of two surveys released last week. A Infotrak Research and Consulting poll released on Friday last week gave the Yes camp a 65 per cent vote, while another by Synovate showed 58 pc of Kenyans indicating preference for the Yes vote.

The Infotrak poll showed the No camp, which is opposed to the new law, commanding 25pc of the vote, while the Synovate one gave No a 22pc vote. On a provincial basis, at least 89pc of registered voters in each of the eight Kenya provinces said they will vote to either approve or reject the proposed Constitution. In North Eastern province, all registered voters indicated their intention to vote with a 100 per cent return.

Western and Nyanza provinces had the highest incidence of the Yes vote a 86pc and 85pc respectively, while Rift Valley reported the lowest incidence at 46pc. The highest number of undecided voters are from Eastern province at 13pc.

Only 16pc of voters reported having thorough knowledge on the contents of the proposed Constitution, while 78pc said they know something and six per cent reported being ignorant of its contents. Among Kenyan voters who reported having information about two thirds or 67pc rated the proposed Constitution as being better than the current one, while 18pc said it was worse.

As in all past polls, the media is the main source of information with regard to contents of the proposed law with 52pc relying on the Press. A paltry 11 per cent of registered voters said their source was civic educators. A further 15pc reported having read the whole document.