Kenyans Name US as the Most Important Country to Kenya

A majority of Kenyans have named the United States as the most important partner to Kenya according to a newly released opinion poll.

An Ipsos Synovate survey published on Wednesday shows that 38 per cent of Kenyans support Kenya's relations with the US. This comes a week after President Uhuru Kenyatta held bilateral talks with his US counterpart Donald Trump at the White House in Washington.

China comes a distant second with 25 per of those interviewed backing good ties with China. On Tuesday, President Uhuru held discussions with Chinese's Xi Jinping on the sidelines of China-Africa Summit in Beijing.

A similar study in March this year put China ahead with 34 per cent approval ratings compared to US's 26 per cent. China elbowed US which had in August 2015 enjoyed the support of 56 per cent of Kenyans.

Approval for better relations with China in the latest poll was high among supporters of the ruling Jubilee Party at 30 per cent and low among opposition backers at 19 per cent.

“Among the Jubilee Party supporters, positive identification of China has dropped from 44 per cent in March to just 30 per cent, with almost as many (28 per cent) now considering the US the country’s most important development partner,” the poll firm said in its 2018 second quarter release.

49 per cent of the supporters of Opposition rooted for better relations with the US.

“Among NASA supporters, such positive identification of China was 24% per cent (as opposed to 32 per cent for the US), whereas in this survey this gap has increased to 49 per cent for the US vs. just 19 per cent for China,” the pollster noted.

United Kingdom (4 per cent), South Africa (4 per cent), and Germany (3 per cent) closed the top five list of countries that Kenyans want as friends of Kenya.

Japan (2 per cent), Russia (2 per cent),  Sweden (1 per cent) and Israel (1 per cent) were listed as sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth respectively.

Those vouching for US mentioned loans and grants as the main reason for their support while others named infrastructure, counter-terrorism, anti-corruption and culture as their reasons.

2,016 respondents in 46 counties took part in the survey between July 25th and August 2nd. The poll reported a +/-2.16 sampling error and 95 per cent degree of confidence.