Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga has maintained the lead in the presidential race according to the latest opinion poll by Trends and Insights Africa (TIFA) released on Monday.

If elections were to be held today, Raila would win by 42 per cent against his closest competitor in the Kenya Kwanza Alliance William Ruto who was rated at 39 per cent.

Roots Party leader George Wajackoyah garnered 4 per cent in the poll same as Agano Party leader David Mwaure Waihiga.

"The recent appearance and rise of one of the two other candidates Prof George Wajackoyah of the Roots Party of Kenya (now at 4%; David Mwaure of the Agano Party failed to illicit more than minuscule support in this survey) at least raises a possibility that neither Odinga nor Ruto will be able to secure an outright, first-round win," TIFA said.

George Wajackoyah. PHOTO/COURTESY

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According to the poll, the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party is the most popular coalition in the country. 

Azimio coalition has been rated at 42 per cent compared to Kenya Kwanza’s 35 per cent with the Azimio coalition having support from the entire country except in the Western and Northern regions. Kenya Kwanza has shown its muscles in numbers in the Central Rift and Mt Kenya regions.

"While the Azimio la Umoja coalition attracts slightly more national support than Kenya Kwanza does (42% vs. 35%), the latter dominates in Central Rift and Mt. Kenya, while Azimio does so everywhere else aside from Northern and Western where the margins between them are quite modest,” TIFA said.

David Mwaure Waihiga. PHOTO/COURTESY

However, even with the support, both factions enjoy from across the country, the poll revealed none of them achieves the two-thirds threshold in any of the zones.

"However, the fact that neither achieves two-thirds support in any of the nine zones helps to explain why their respective campaign efforts continue to crisscross/overlap each other, sometimes almost on a daily basis," TIFA said.

The poll revealed that the Azimio coalition leads in such regions as Nyanza (66 per cent), Nairobi (56 per cent) Coast (50 per cent), Eastern (49 per cent) South Rift (46 per cent) and Western (45 per cent)

Kenya Kwanza Alliance leads in Central Rift (61 per cent) Mt Kenya (47 per cent) and Northern Kenya (45 per cent)