Poll finds Kenya's declared winner lost

July 9, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya Six months after a deeply flawed election triggered a wave of ethnic killings in Kenya, a U.S. government-funded exit poll finds that the wrong candidate was declared the winner. President Mwai Kibaki, whom official results credited with a 2-point margin of victory in the December vote, finished nearly 6 points behind in the exit poll, which was released yesterday by researchers from the University of California, San Diego. Opposition leader Raila Odinga scored "a clear win outside the margin of error" according to surveys of voters as they left polling places on Election Day, the poll's author said. The incumbent Kibaki was sworn in for a second term despite major irregularities in vote-counting, sparking tribal attacks that killed more than 1,000 people.