Deputy President William Ruto emerged the winner in a mock election conducted by KTN News in Nyeri County defeating his close rival ODM leader Raila Odinga.
In a mock election held on Monday, April 4, DP Ruto, who is expected to fly the Kenya Kwanza flag in the coming August elections got 70 votes out of 99 votes casts which translate to a 70.7%.
On the other hand, the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition’s presidential candidate got 26 votes which represents 26.2% of the total votes cast.
Other presidential candidates, Jimi Wanjigi, Mwangi Wa Iria, and George Wajackoyah got one vote each.
The mock election took place at Dedan Kimathi University, where KTN News was holding a public discussion forum on Mt Kenya politics.
Jubilee director of elections, Kanini Kega was impressed with the result of the mock election, saying it paints a picture of how the former prime minister has gained ground in the vote-rich region of Mt Kenya.
According to Kega, the voter results mean that Deputy President William Ruto has lost significant ground in the region.
“In 2107 Raila got 5000 votes in Nyeri if you go with these statistics, you have here, that is 26 %, if you multiply with voter registration that we have in Nyeri it means that currently, Raila has 135,000 votes.
“Basically, the person who is losing is not Raila who is losing in central, he is actually gaining, the person who has lost ground is William Ruto because it was assumed that he will inherit the entire of Mt Kenya votes, he has already lost a quarter of the bloc,” Kanini stated.
According to IEBC data, out of the 395,936 valid votes cast President Uhuru Kenyatta together with his deputy, got 389, 410 votes compared to Raila Odinga who got 4,735 votes.
Assuming that the polls represent the actual voting pattern of the Nyeri residents, then Raila would have around 102, 943 votes.
If the pattern replicates across the Mt Kenya counties, which control more than 5,000,000 registered voters, then hypothetically we can say Raila will get 1,300,000 votes from the entire central region.
This hypothesis will be to the disadvantage of DP Ruto as most political analyst have previously opined that the second in command needs to keep the entire of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s backyard in order to increase his chances of winning the August polls.
