Second round likely as police deploy 99,000 for Kenya election

Weekly Trust gathered in Nairobi yesterday that this means there might be no clear first round winner as the country’s constitution stipulates that a winning candidate must get 50 plus 1 percent of the votes. Since none of the candidates is favoured to meet this requirement out rightly, a second round is seen as likely, […]

Weekly Trust gathered in Nairobi yesterday that this means there might be no clear first round winner as the country’s constitution stipulates that a winning candidate must get 50 plus 1 percent of the votes. Since none of the candidates is favoured to meet this requirement out rightly, a second round is seen as likely, and this would be a month later.
It was gathered that the combined stronghold of Raila Odinga’s top rival, Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate have 6.6 million of the 14.5 million registered voters while the combined stronghold of Odinga and his running mate has 3.5 million voters. However, these combine to produce 60 percent of the total number of voters, leaving free regime voters of 40 percent. This could favour Raila more than Kenyatta, because political analysts here say it will make Musaila Mudavadi, the third most popular of the eight candidates, the king maker.
Mudavadi’s 5 percent supporter are said to likely to tilt in favour of Raila in the event of a second round, as he, like Odinga, also hails from western Kenya. Kenyatta is from Central Kenya.