NASA supporters in Diaspora challenge Ipsos poll survey

Kenyans in the diaspora who support National Super Alliance (Nasa) presidential candidate Raila Odinga have disputed the Ipsos Synovate’s polls survey released recently pitting President Uhuru Kenyatta of Jubilee and Raila.

They pointed out that if the May 31st, 2017 poll survey is critically scrutinized, it lacks merit.

Forensic analysis looked unauthentic. It appeared to favour the current government. Dr Tom Wolf, of Ipsos however ignored the fact that Jubilee runs the government and Nasa does not and that nothing changed in terms of political dynamics since the last election," said Robert Ndede, a Kenyan researcher in a New York polling firm.

He noted that to compare Nasa coalition formed barely five months ago while Jubilee has been in power for almost five years is misleading the Kenyan voters adding that it is just last weekend that NASA unveiled its agenda for the country while at a rally in Bukhungu stadium.

“For a coalition which has not laid a solid foundation or even campaigned widely in the country to be compared with Uhuru’s Jubilee in terms of education, health care provision, and enhancing regional security by Dr. Wolf is an absurdity," Ndede said.

Interestingly, they pointed out that Ipsos found that of the 2057 Kenyans interviewed, 2 per cent approve of Jubilee’s performance in improving the health of Kenyans, while zero per cent approves of Nasa on this issue.

"Zero per cent rating may mean that all Nasa supporters disapproved Nasa agenda or Nasa was not in existence by the time its development agenda was compared with that of Jubilee or nobody was interviewed at all and that the authenticity of Ipsos data is questionable," said Joseph Lister Nyaringo, who is also the president of Kenya Patriotic Movement, a diaspora lobby group.

He noted that if the reported facts were true, then 98 per cent of Kenyans disapprove of the Jubilee’s ability to improve health care.

“If a 2 per cent approval rate for Jubilee in health care provision and management is a fact, then the doctors’ and nurses’ strikes that paralyzed the country was justified. According to any known standard, it will be a disaster for any government to have a 2 per cent approval rating in health care,” said Dan Ochweri, a Kenyan engineer living in Pennsylvania, US.

He added, "If 45.8 per cent of Kenyans lean towards Jubilee government while 34 per cent towards Nasa, yet 4 per cent of Kenyans approve the way its handling education, and 1 per cent, enhancing of security against Nasa’s zero per cent and 1 per cent respectively, as per Ipsos, then this rating is too low for Jubilee."

They noted that there is no way 45.8 per cent of Kenyans whom Ipsos survey says leans towards Jubilee would do so towards a low-rated government.

Ipsos rates Jubilee at 1 per cent in terms of how its handling security. Therefore, according to this poll, 99 per cent of Kenyans feel insecure, but are still supporting Kenyatta. In the past three polls, Ipsos puts Kenyatta’s popularity at 50% but his government at below 10 per cent. If these polls hold, then Uhuru is overrated. Critical analysis of the surveys may depict a trend where figures are cooked to favour Jubilee," posed Ali Abdi Ali, a Kenyan living in the UK..

He pointed out that in another survey whose results were released on December 21, 2016, 1083 people were sampled.

"Ipsos again interviewed 142 respondents from Mt Kenya and 142 from Nyanza region. All the people, they approached, answered their questions. How possible is it that nobody refused to respond? wondered Ali.

He noted that in polls surveys whether business or politics, this is a rare phenomenon, only achievable in experiments conducted in hospitals, where patients are categorized based on their ailments, vital signs, and other factors to generate treatment cases.

"If we compute the figures, according to the survey that put Uhuru at 50 per cent, the total number of people interviewed from Mt Kenya and Nyanza was 284 (26.2 per cent). Therefore 73.8 per cent were from other regions. For the President to have a 50 per cent overall, he must have gained popularity in almost all Raila’s strongholds," Ochweri pointed out.

He said that this is a clear demonstration that that Ipsos lacks integrity and that its surveys are skewed. This is another form of psychological voters’ suppression and disenfranchisement.

"A glaring inconsistency also referred to as digital preference syndrome is one way of cooking data. Here, you scrutinize repeated digit presentation. The individual doing the polling unconsciously prefers using repeated digits," Ndede said.

He added, "Figure 6 was the preferred digit. The survey found that the number of undecided voters was the same in Nyanza (6 per cent), Central (6 per cent), Eastern (6 per cent) and Rift Valley (6 per cent). On the other hand, in March 2016 Ipsos interviewed 2076, on June 4^th, 2016, it interviewed 2067 while on December 21^st, 2016, 2057 people. This is cooked and not coincidental."

They pointed out that Ipsos compares Raila and Uhuru’s popularity and conclude that the findings were synonymous with who support the government and those who resent the government.

"This implies that if you are close to Raila or come from Raila’s region, then, by default, you are against the government and vice versa. How come Ipsos does not conduct polls on the popularity of Uhuru and Ruto but has consistently done the same between Kalonzo, Raila, Musalia and even Wetangula?” Ali posed.

They advised Ipsos that if it wants to build confidence and be taken a credible polling entity, let it start conducting it surveys through regions. They want the polling agency to revert to the use old demographics of eight provinces or conduct its surveys in 47 counties as the surest way to authenticate its survey in country.

“Falsification of data is a criminal act in any society. It robs off an institution, firm or individual credibility and trust. Majority of Kenyans are not happy with Dr. Wolf’s unauthenticated and unscientific surveys," Nyaringo said.