Kenya: Close polls as election date nears

(SomaliNet) Nine days before the presidential election, Kenya\'s incumbent president and his main rival were neck-and-neck in two opinion polls released on Tuesday.

In a survey conducted by the American pollster Gallup, President Mwai Kibaki came out on top for the first time in weeks, with 44 percent of voter intentions to opposition leader Raila Odinga\'s 43 percent.

Another poll by Kenya\'s Steadman Group had 45 percent of people surveyed planning to cast their ballot for Odinga and 43 percent for Kibaki.

According to these polls, the 76-year-old Kibaki has closed the gap on the 62-year-old Odinga who had inched clear of the president in the previous batches of surveys.

The East African nation\'s fourth multi-party elections look set to be the closest ever.

Kibaki, the longest-serving parliamentarian in Kenya, and Odinga, a flamboyant former political detainee, differ in style but ideological differences between the two frontrunners are few.

Both men were sparing no efforts, spending unprecedented amounts of money on TV, billboard, email and mobile phone campaigns, and criss-crossing the country in convoys and helicopters to gather more support. - Sapa-AFP