TNS Research Says 68% of Kenyans to Favor New Constitution in a Referendum

Kenyans will vote in favor of a new constitution in an Aug. 4 referendum by a 68-to-25 margin, according to a public opinion survey released today by TNS Research International.

Ninety-five percent of registered voters said they will vote in the forthcoming referendum, Geoffrey Kimani, research director at TNS Research International, told reporters today in Nairobi, the capital. The poll found that 3 percent won’t vote.

The company interviewed 1,600 respondents selected randomly from the east African nation’s eight provinces. Seven percent said they were undecided. The margin of error in the survey conducted from July 23 to July 25 is 2.45 percent, Kimani said.

The draft constitution aims to limit presidential powers, make land distribution more equitable and ease ethnic divisions that sparked post-election violence in 2008, killing as many as 1,500 people.

Synovate Ltd., Kenya’s biggest pollster, said on July 23 that 58 percent of Kenyans backed the proposed changes, while 22 percent would reject it, according to a survey it conducted among 6,005 people from July 11 to July 17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net.

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