Charles Horsnby latest updatehttp://www.charleshornsby.com/kenya-blogJust an incremental update, with a refreshed equal-vote county map, a few more Mizani opinion polls and articles, and deep dives into the IEBC's long-awaited all-seats candidate listing, gazetted 13 July but backdated to 1 July, which turned up some surprises.
Overall, no major change, still predicting:
1)
a narrow 52-48 win for Ruto all other things being equal. Since my ethnically-driven model is predictive (educated guesswork) not statistically based, it has no margin of error (its either correct or not, we will find out).
2) Azimio to take 24 governorships to Kenya Kwanza's 21, with two (nominal) independents
3) In the Assembly, it's on a knife edge, with (among elected constituency MPs) 143 estimated for KK, 137 for Azimio and 11 independents/unknowns. I've not done women representatives in the assembly or the senators yet.
?So, all still to play for. Any one of a dozen factors could change those results. Though I note a little more confidence in the KK campaign Twitter feed recently and their language is moving gradually towards an assumption rather than an assertion of victory. Still, as Kenyans like to vote for winners, that itself is a campaign move - building a bandwagon in the media is a highly-paid dark art.
I've also updated the equal-vote (iso-suffragiem?) map with a couple of changes. I've enlarged the definition of "large majority" to 2-1 (66% to 33% or more) and partly as a result I've moved three counties from strong Raila to narrow Raila - Isiolo, Nyamira and Nairobi. In contrast I've reviewed the candidates and polls in Kakamega and concluded that Azimio will win the majority and consequently called it for Raila.
So, for me Nairobi, Kakamega and Kajiado are now key in deciding the result (as well as turnout of course).
?Kajiado I've reviewed again and still consider too close to call from here. I briefly considered whether Kirinyaga could be considered "narrow Ruto" but I think still not. The other Mount Kenya and Kalenjin counties look pretty safe to me right now. But that's the great danger of making public predictions - after the event they are either obvious if correct (even if no-one else said them at the time) or ridiculous and embarrassing if wrong. Of course, I wont be right. Its impossible. But I hope I'll be somewhere near...and if not, well, maybe I will cultivate my shamba next election. Meanwhile, please enjoy.