About Steadman polls.
Who is Steadman's number one client? The Kibaki government. What does this chief client (Kibaki) require from Steadman after paying it huge sums of taxpayer shillings? To push-poll and sway public opinion towards the government's side every three months (quarterly).What is push-polling?
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. Push polls are generally viewed as a form of negative campaigning with no form of accountability.If Steadman conduct's it's mandated quarterly "opinion polls", on behalf of it's chief client (Kibaki) in an "unfavourable" manner - which means accurately and scientifically - then the contract (& of course big bucks) will be gone. End of story. Steadman has to therefore skew its poll results in favour of the direction of the big bucks. People MUST BE told that Kibaki is in fact the best thing that has ever happened to Kenya. That he is overwhelmingly popular and will beat anybody in an election called today.
Steadman's complicity in this government ploy is quite obvious by now. They are push polling in an attempt to sway political opinion in Kenya, based on our collective gullibility and impressionability. Many Kenyans could in fact vote for a politician or a political outfit just for the thought that it could actually be the "winning" person or team. They would all love to feel included in the winning team. That's the Kenyan psyche of lending euphoric support to the presumed winner.
Here is my prediction. Kibaki's government has discovered push polling as a viable and effective tool to mislead and sway public opinion. He will want to monopolize this push-polling business and prevent other cunning politicians from releasing their own sets of counter "polls". Kibaki knows very well that ODM-K is a real threat that would most likely lodge him out of office. He has to begin interfering with the Kenyan psyche through see-saw and ping-pong opinion polls that rates ODM's Kalonzo Musyoka's popularity high today and low tomorrow, and such kind of destroy-the-ODM stuff. Other candidates would be portrayed through sheer deceit as not being able to even surpass the 20% popularity mark. Kibaki may be very interested in facing off with certain candidates (percieved as weak) but totally abvoiding others (percieved as strong).
Just last month, Kibaki quietly signed into law, an Act that outlaws "unrecognized" political pollsters and thus regulating this industry. Only pollsters that favour his ratings will be allowed in the industry.
www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143958811&date=27/09/2006That was just a prelude of what is yet to come. We are going to be fed with a three-monthly dose of Steadman's push-polls which will state in successive fashion that Mwai Kibaki is not only very popular, but actually increasing in popularity until he surpasses the 50% mark. This would be used as a justification incase he rigs elections, nobody should therefore complain then.
We are watching you very keenly Kibaki. You will not succeed in this one. Kenyans must know the truth.
Steadman polls must be viewed for exactly what they are. A propaganda tool aimed at helping re-elect Kibaki. Little or no attention should thus be placed on them and the ODM leadership must seriously let wananchi know about this Steadman propaganda and ask them to ignore the polls henceforth.
Some obvious flaws of Steadman's amateurish and non-scientific "polls" are;
(a) Respondents belonging to a particular subset or combination of subsets of the population, based on demographic or political characteristics are selected, hence the sample is never a randomly selected one, neither is it a representative national sample of likely voters.
(b) Figures don't simply add up. For instance if you add up the respective percentages scored for each Presidential candidate (Kibaki, Kalonzo, Raila, Uhuru, Ruto et al), 41, 20, 13, 5, 2 ,& <1.....the total tallies to 80 something percent. Where are the other respondent's or where is the not sure column? In quantitative terms, this is a statistical misnomer which quickly raises a red flag.
(c ) The survey fails to make demographic inquiries on factors such as age, household income or status as a likely voter sufficient to allow for the tabulation of results based on a relevant subset of the population consistent with standard polling industry practices.
( d) The survey prefaces a question regarding support for a candidate on the basis of an untrue statement;
(e) The survey is primarily for the purpose of suppressing or changing the voting position of the respondent since the survey questions lack in logic. The questions are tailored to create bias through lead-questions.
(f) The polls evade asking the most likely political scenarios. I failed to see any practical polling question based on likely scenarios such as the possibility of there being two candidates, Kibaki from Narc and one candidate from ODM. For instance why not pair up possible scenarios like; Kibaki vs Kalonzo alone, Kibaki vs Raila alone, Kibaki vs Ruto alone or Kibaki vs Musalia alone. Eh ? See the mischief in these thugs.
(g) As Adongo accurately pointed out, why pose two responses that are non-mutually exclusive under a single survey question. Just where is the logic.
The answer is obvious. Steadman polls are just pro-Kibaki political ploys that need to be ignored.
unedited.
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