During an interview on Citizen TV last night, Narc Kenya presidential candidate Martha Karua just came short of saying that CORD and Jubilee are sponsoring the two main opinion pollsters. Responding to Lilian Muli’s query about her take on the latest opinion poll that gave her a mere 0.3%, Martha Karua also claimed that the pollsters were running an agenda that would finally kick her out of the rankings.
She wondered how she had dropped from 8 to 5 to 3 and now 0.3%, yet she had traversed the whole country hunting for votes. Karua added that she may have fallen out with the pollsters after she started advocating for the revelation of opinion poll sponsors. She however regretted that the research companies had found a way around this, by claiming that they sponsor the polls themselves. Karua however read mischief in this, by adding that it made no business sense for the companies to sponsor polls, and that it was in fact her competitors who were paying for them.
Careful not to give names on National TV, Karua said that two camps were sponsoring the polls, and that anyone can pinpoint who, by just looking at the results of the polls. She added that the sponsors make sure the opinion polls are released at a time that favours them.
Karua’s sentiments can be interpreted to mean that CORD is sponsoring Infotrak while Jubilee is sponsoring Synovate.
Kenyans on social media have in the recent past, and especially after release of Infotrak opinion polls, tried to prove that the pollster is associated with Raila, or people from his tribe and therefore favouring him. This theory picked fire again, immediately the pollster released its results last week, where Raila led by 51% with Uhuru coming second at 39%.
Synovate on the other hand has faced accusations that it has been favouring Uhuru Kenyatta over his competitors. For several months now, polls released by Synovate show Uhuru significantly narrowing the gap on Raila, with one released in November last year showing that Kenyatta would actually beat Raila in case of a runoff. That again did not go down well with Raila’s supporters who saw it as a move by Kenyatta to influence the public ‘fraudulently’. To make matters worse, Kenyatta, while responding to a journalist’s question said that the opinion poll was good news to his camp as it showed they were gaining good ground. Many wondered why the Kenyatta who was all along anti opinion polls had changed tone.
Despite the lack of evidence, many Kenyans believe that Opinion polls are doctored to favour their sponsors. This is mainly due to the discrepancies from pollster to pollster. However, as one person said, politicians should use the opinion poll results as a tool, not a rule. Perhaps Karua is doing just that.
