Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Omollo on July 23, 2017, 01:40:52 PM
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It took rebel Macharia Gaitho to write about it and how and why it was ignored and scroll below (next post from Omollo) to see the reaction:
A new opinion poll showing Mr Raila Odinga finally overtaking President Uhuru Kenyatta just 20 days to the elections would in most circumstances be treated as a major piece of news.
But the mainstream media generally ignored it despite the best efforts of Nasa to publicise what it considered a significant breakthrough.
The problem was that the survey was paid for by Mr Odinga’s campaign.
But the numbers were still intriguing, especially because celebrated American pollster John Zogby comes with an international brand reputation to protect.
He runs a major operation very different from the myriad briefcase pollsters that crop up every election season in Kenya.
IGNORED POLL
Related Content
Poll funded by Opposition kicks up a storm
Early last month, for instance, the media also ignored a poll from an outfit calling itself the African Electoral Observers Group showing President Kenyatta winning with 51 per cent of the vote over Mr Odinga’s 39 per cent.
In the first place, the numbers were in marked contrast to other recent polls that all show Mr Odinga significantly closing the gap on President Kenyatta, but still falling short by between five and seven percentage points.
The numbers have all indicated President Kenyatta just short of the 50 per cent-plus needed to avoid a run-off.
UNDECIDED VOTERS
The significance is in the 8 per cent undecided voters and lack of any viable third-party candidate, with the other six presidential contenders sharing about 1 per cent of the vote between them.
What this means is that even if the undecided vote was shared equally between President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, the former would nip past the 50 per cent mark to secure a first-round victory.
But if Mr Odinga maintained his recent surge at Mr Kenyatta’s expense, and then scooped more of the undecided vote, he could be the one to secure a first round victory in the race where a run-off is increasingly unlikely.
The suspect poll was a major departure from the others, but apart from numbers, there were also questions about a group that had suddenly sprung up with no history, no traceable address and no known contact person.
TIGHT RACE
It was in the midst of tightening race indicated by established pollsters and a suspicious poll predicting a Kenyatta victory that the Zogby poll showing Mr Odinga edging past was released.
It significantly showed Mr Odinga leading with 47.42 per cent of the vote to President Kenyatta’s 46.63. It had 5 per cent undecided and 1 per cent shared amongst the minor candidates.
Although the difference between Mr Odinga and President Kenya was less than 1 per cent, the reversal of fortunes was still significant as it indicated where the momentum was in the closing weeks.
Then came the dilemma of how to handle an “internal” poll commissioned by an interested party keen for publicity. The first instinct was to down-play or trash it, but a pollster as established as Zogby is too important to ignore, so Nation decided to at least seek confirmation by contacting him independently.
MORE INFORMATION
An e-mail query through his corporate website elicited a ready response: Yes, he was John Zogby, senior partner at John Zogby Strategies, and confirmed participating in the poll commissioned by Nasa.
But on request for more information on the methodology, he responded: “I will leave that to Nasa to release to you with my full blessing.”
The Nation then contacted Mr Odinga’s spokesman Dennis Onyango and Ms Kathleen Openda of the Nasa campaign secretariat, and the latter supplied a more detailed presentation.
A significant fresh detail was that the sampling was not just done in the 47 counties, but in each of 290 sub-counties, presumably corresponding to National Assembly constituencies.
RAISE QUERIES
The presentation did not give a breakdown of the sample distribution, but Ms Openda affirmed that the 2,983 respondents were spread across “every sub-county weighted according to its proportion in the IEBC register”.
That might well raise queries on the validity of data where the sample in every sub-county might be too small to draw reliable conclusions from.
But the poll also came with a novel sampling frame where instead of just reporting by region, the demographics are broken down into ethnic groups, weighted by census data.
Those numbers could be significant in a country where the tribe is still the main determinant of voting preferences.
Another novelty is that of the 5 per cent undecided voters, the poll tried to determine where they would eventually vote, and concluded that most, with the biggest majority being Luhya, would lean to Nasa.
These of course are numbers and conclusions that will be fiercely contested.
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State House mistook this football guy who is their dyed in the wool sycophant for the author of that article and slapped a ban on him. The guy is shitting bricks and expects to be murdered Jakob Juma style any second:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFXlPOdXYAEaIOx.jpg)
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They were told there is a poll. They went automatically ethnic and threw rocks at Ambitho. Itumbi manufactured a video.
But to their surprise, it was Zogby!
Jubilee pays for polls through proxies. NASA chose to do it directly and declare. Look at some of the criticisms by The Ethnic Rag:
There would also be concerns about the pollster’s methodology given he did not set foot in the country, and is probably unfamiliar with the Kenyan environment, and depended on statistics gathered by his team on the ground.
This is the most crippled excuse I have ever heard. What is the relationship between methodology used and the CEO of the company setting or not setting foot in the country of contract?
By JOHN NGIRACHU
More by this Author
Journalists arriving for the teleconference with American pollster John Zogby were ushered into a small conference room at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon.
Those who arrived late, dragging in their equipment for live transmission of the event, were surprised to find their colleagues hunched over their notebooks and speaking into a telephone on speakerphone.
At the other end of the line was the pollster, Mr Zogby, and he would take time to look up the poll on his computer before answering the questions.
There was nothing to film, for the TV journalists, and the others had to bear with the awkwardness of asking questions to a man they could not see and had never seen or heard before.
SLIM LEAD
Asked about the difference between his poll, which had Mr Odinga with a slim lead over President Uhuru Kenyatta, and others released before, which have shown Mr Odinga behind, Mr Zogby told reporters: “I think we all agree on the directional signal of the polls.
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Why did media ignore new poll showing Raila ahead of Uhuru?
We are all not saying the same exact things. I think we all are agreeing that Mr Kenyatta’s lead has subsided but that this is a much closer race than it was, say, last week or two weeks ago.”
READ: Jubilee starts 'war' with Infotrak
He said the reason he was comfortable with the poll that he “oversaw, monitored and helped draft and analyse” was that in his 32 years of polling, there have been many incidents in which his results have been different from those of other pollsters but he has been proven right.
This was the backdrop against which the poll, Mr Zogby said had been paid for by Nasa, was released.
RAISED QUESTIONS
That Nasa had paid for the poll was probably among the reasons it was treated with caution by the leading national newspapers as it would have raised questions such as whether the poll would have been made public if it had shown Mr Odinga trailing President Kenyatta.
There would also be concerns about the pollster’s methodology given he did not set foot in the country, and is probably unfamiliar with the Kenyan environment, and depended on statistics gathered by his team on the ground.
READ: Uhuru, Raila fall short of magical 50pc support
With 19 days to the General Election at the time it was released, the survey marked the start of the last two weeks within which opinion polls can be released.
Going by the law, the latest an opinion poll can be published would be five days before the General Election.
ZOGBY POLL
The agreement within the industry is seven days to the polls.
The Zogby Poll became the first survey, paid for by a political outfit, to be published in the current campaign period.
It could also be the beginning of political bickering over opinion polls that has characterised the last days of campaigns in recent election years.
READ: Uhuru leads Raila in new poll
Before its publication, the Jubilee Party had a whiff of information that a Nasa-affiliated pollster would be publishing a poll showing President Kenyatta and his closest competitor were tied at 47 per cent ratings.
The Jubilee side struck on Tuesday evening, telling the press that they were aware that InfoTrak boss Angela Ambitho would be releasing the said poll the following day and that she had met a relative of a prominent Coast ODM politician last week.
CREDIBILITY
“What we are really questioning is the credibility of these opinion polls especially those where there are undeclared interests,” said Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wah.
National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale described the poll as “orchestrated and paid for by Nasa” and meant to lay the ground for the rejection of the results of the presidential election by Mr Odinga.
“They want to poison the minds of Kenyans so that they can refuse the results of the election,” said Mr Duale.
It looked like the Jubilee Party had intelligence that there would be a poll released by a Nasa-affiliated pollster so they used Ms Ambitho’s background – she has consulted for the Opposition before – to claim her firm would be the source of the poll.
AMBITHO
On Tuesday evening, Ms Ambitho bristled at the suggestion she had a poll ready, telling the Nation on phone that it was apparent that Jubilee politicians were guessing and trying to pre-empt something they had a hunch about.
“These guys may probably have data. They are privy to information and that information is making them pre-emptive,” she said.
“As we speak, we don’t have any data to release,” said Ms Ambitho, who also said she was aware of social media posts criticising her work.
She also referred to the law on opinion polls and the industry standards which leave a two-week window before the General Election within which a poll can be published.
READ: President Kenyatta still leads an advancing Raila Odinga
“Tell me which pollster will not be releasing results. What is happening is a no-brainer: they are just pre-empting. Because it will happen. When it will happen, I can’t tell you because we don’t have data yet. There will be at least one poll,” she said.
TRENDS
Infotrak and Trends and Insights for Africa have since then released poll results.
This is not the first time there has been a kerfuffle over opinion polls just before the elections.
Ms Ambitho recalled that it was not the first time that an allegation has been made against her company.
“They did that in 2007. They did that in 2013. What is so relevant today?” she asked.
In the 2013 election, then government spokesman Muthui Kariuki had termed opinion polls divisive.
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Zogby and infotrak polls are virtually the same http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Infotrak-poll-shows-Raila-ahead-of-Uhuru/1056-4028786-ejfvfjz/index.html . I guess jubilee knew what was coming all along.
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Omollo,
I have never found Macharia Gaitho to be a rebel. Whenever he attacks kamwana and Kibaki before, he has always found a way to "balance" it with pot shots at Raila. In many cases, his attacks on GoK have merely been prelude to the main point, which is to attack Raila. In his world, the government might suck, but if only Raila was a better person.
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It took rebel Macharia Gaitho to write about it and how and why it was ignored and scroll below (next post from Omollo) to see the reaction:
A new opinion poll showing Mr Raila Odinga finally overtaking President Uhuru Kenyatta just 20 days to the elections would in most circumstances be treated as a major piece of news.
But the mainstream media generally ignored it despite the best efforts of Nasa to publicise what it considered a significant breakthrough.
The problem was that the survey was paid for by Mr Odinga’s campaign.
But the numbers were still intriguing, especially because celebrated American pollster John Zogby comes with an international brand reputation to protect.
He runs a major operation very different from the myriad briefcase pollsters that crop up every election season in Kenya.
IGNORED POLL
Related Content
Poll funded by Opposition kicks up a storm
Early last month, for instance, the media also ignored a poll from an outfit calling itself the African Electoral Observers Group showing President Kenyatta winning with 51 per cent of the vote over Mr Odinga’s 39 per cent.
In the first place, the numbers were in marked contrast to other recent polls that all show Mr Odinga significantly closing the gap on President Kenyatta, but still falling short by between five and seven percentage points.
The numbers have all indicated President Kenyatta just short of the 50 per cent-plus needed to avoid a run-off.
UNDECIDED VOTERS
The significance is in the 8 per cent undecided voters and lack of any viable third-party candidate, with the other six presidential contenders sharing about 1 per cent of the vote between them.
What this means is that even if the undecided vote was shared equally between President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, the former would nip past the 50 per cent mark to secure a first-round victory.
But if Mr Odinga maintained his recent surge at Mr Kenyatta’s expense, and then scooped more of the undecided vote, he could be the one to secure a first round victory in the race where a run-off is increasingly unlikely.
The suspect poll was a major departure from the others, but apart from numbers, there were also questions about a group that had suddenly sprung up with no history, no traceable address and no known contact person.
TIGHT RACE
It was in the midst of tightening race indicated by established pollsters and a suspicious poll predicting a Kenyatta victory that the Zogby poll showing Mr Odinga edging past was released.
It significantly showed Mr Odinga leading with 47.42 per cent of the vote to President Kenyatta’s 46.63. It had 5 per cent undecided and 1 per cent shared amongst the minor candidates.
Although the difference between Mr Odinga and President Kenya was less than 1 per cent, the reversal of fortunes was still significant as it indicated where the momentum was in the closing weeks.
Then came the dilemma of how to handle an “internal” poll commissioned by an interested party keen for publicity. The first instinct was to down-play or trash it, but a pollster as established as Zogby is too important to ignore, so Nation decided to at least seek confirmation by contacting him independently.
MORE INFORMATION
An e-mail query through his corporate website elicited a ready response: Yes, he was John Zogby, senior partner at John Zogby Strategies, and confirmed participating in the poll commissioned by Nasa.
But on request for more information on the methodology, he responded: “I will leave that to Nasa to release to you with my full blessing.”
The Nation then contacted Mr Odinga’s spokesman Dennis Onyango and Ms Kathleen Openda of the Nasa campaign secretariat, and the latter supplied a more detailed presentation.
A significant fresh detail was that the sampling was not just done in the 47 counties, but in each of 290 sub-counties, presumably corresponding to National Assembly constituencies.
RAISE QUERIES
The presentation did not give a breakdown of the sample distribution, but Ms Openda affirmed that the 2,983 respondents were spread across “every sub-county weighted according to its proportion in the IEBC register”.
That might well raise queries on the validity of data where the sample in every sub-county might be too small to draw reliable conclusions from.
But the poll also came with a novel sampling frame where instead of just reporting by region, the demographics are broken down into ethnic groups, weighted by census data.
Those numbers could be significant in a country where the tribe is still the main determinant of voting preferences.
Another novelty is that of the 5 per cent undecided voters, the poll tried to determine where they would eventually vote, and concluded that most, with the biggest majority being Luhya, would lean to Nasa.
These of course are numbers and conclusions that will be fiercely contested.
I don't how you missed this. But you should immediately realize that Gaitho is singing a version the jubilant chorus in this story, even as he puts on a thin veneer of neutrality.
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Windy, I totally agree. I came to accept that as his survival tactics. Although Raila is not in government, he always find Raila to be a contributor of some sort to the failures of the government.
Omollo,
I have never found Macharia Gaitho to be a rebel. Whenever he attacks kamwana and Kibaki before, he has always found a way to "balance" it with pot shots at Raila. In many cases, his attacks on GoK have merely been prelude to the main point, which is to attack Raila. In his world, the government might suck, but if only Raila was a better person.
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Windy, I totally agree. I came to accept that as his survival tactics. Although Raila is not in government, he always find Raila to be a contributor of some sort to the failures of the government.
Omollo,
I have never found Macharia Gaitho to be a rebel. Whenever he attacks kamwana and Kibaki before, he has always found a way to "balance" it with pot shots at Raila. In many cases, his attacks on GoK have merely been prelude to the main point, which is to attack Raila. In his world, the government might suck, but if only Raila was a better person.
Yep. I have known this about him for over a decade now. He concurs there is shit. But at the end you are left feeling that this shit would not be there, if only Raila did A, B, C...
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Windy, I totally agree. I came to accept that as his survival tactics. Although Raila is not in government, he always find Raila to be a contributor of some sort to the failures of the government.
Omollo,
I have never found Macharia Gaitho to be a rebel. Whenever he attacks kamwana and Kibaki before, he has always found a way to "balance" it with pot shots at Raila. In many cases, his attacks on GoK have merely been prelude to the main point, which is to attack Raila. In his world, the government might suck, but if only Raila was a better person.
Yep. I have known this about him for over a decade now. He concurs there is shit. But at the end you are left feeling that this shit would not be there, if only Raila did A, B, C...
A journalist who pisses off everyone is damn good
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A journalist who pisses off everyone is damn good
Possibly. More likely someone trying to please everyone. Someone dishonest. I am never pissed off by demonstrable facts.
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A journalist who pisses off everyone is damn good
Possibly. More likely someone trying to please everyone. Someone dishonest. I am never pissed off by demonstrable facts.
Jubilee and NASWA all take turns to hurl invectives at him. That's a sober guy
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I am not getting your point.
The fact that Jubilee abuses state resources to spy on entities for their own benefit in no way de-legitimizes what they spy on.
I need to hear your point clearly, such as if you are saying NASA paid both Zogby and Infotrak to cook polls.
I expect a person like you to avoid the pedestrian and retarded crap going on out there and analyze the data and base your comments on that. To try to pass a half a conspiracy theory here is low. May be you have noticed I am not commenting on the massive crap of conspiracies on this board. I will comment when there is substantive matters are raised. Shame on you
Zogby and infotrak polls are virtually the same http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Infotrak-poll-shows-Raila-ahead-of-Uhuru/1056-4028786-ejfvfjz/index.html . I guess jubilee knew what was coming all along.
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Here is how it works: Being a Kikuyu, they expect him to do his part to defend Uthamaki. If you read Soyinka (Kongi's Harvest) he calls it Ismism and the followers "Ismites" The Country "Ismland". You can use similar abstractions on Uthamaki, Muthamaki, Uthamakistan.
Punishment for a citizen of Uthamkistan who fails to do "his might" is harder than for a non Uthamakistani.
At this particular period until after elections, it is no time for a Kikuyu to expose his support for Raila to the Intelligentsia. They are tense and angry. My contacts tell me how they now would prefer to see Raila dead: "Huyo mjaluo ni heri afe". Look at how vooke is behaving to get a rough idea.
Omollo,
I have never found Macharia Gaitho to be a rebel. Whenever he attacks kamwana and Kibaki before, he has always found a way to "balance" it with pot shots at Raila. In many cases, his attacks on GoK have merely been prelude to the main point, which is to attack Raila. In his world, the government might suck, but if only Raila was a better person.
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I have mused often at the debate here. And the NASA vs Jubilee divide. Trying to be 'objective' one finds oneself flirting with what Windy terms as "pleasing everyone" or dishonest territory. Anyway this thread is another reminder that a disguise is self-reflecting.