THE STEADMAN POLL SPELL??

Allow me to play the devil’s advocate………
Earlier this year, when the Steadman polls placed Raila Odinga’s ratings at a dinky 12%, against Kibaki’s 45%, and Kalonzo’s 20%, we vilified the pollsters for “skewing” the results in favour of the Kibaki government. We promptly pronounced George Waititu and Tom Wolfe as “fraudulent, illegitimate government agents”, who were hired by Kibaki to dupe Kenyans out of their support for the opposition.
We further accused them of plotting to crack open the fault lines within the opposition by artificially placing Kalonzo ahead of Raila in blatant disregard of the reality within the ODM-K circles.

Kalonzo supporters in the spirit of speaking with a consonant voice, joined the Raila supporters in disgracing the reputation and rectitude of Steadman, as a government machinery for daring to garble the mood on the ground by amplifying the President’s popularity.
However, deep in their heart of hearts, they were probably crunching numbers around and about the 20% that Kalonzo was sitting on. The statisticians in the Kalonzo camp were possibly extrapolating figures in the likely event of a Kibaki-Kalonzo encounter, therefore making Raila the compulsive obstacle for Kalonzo’s success.

Kibaki supporters on the other hand heralded the poll results as a true reflection of the President’s popularity. Those who discredited the figures were simply Raila sychophants who were out of touch with reality.

Six months down the line, the good men at Steadman now place Raila favourably at 53% ahead of Kibaki’s 37% and Kalonzo’s 8%, much to our hospitable and receptive hands albeit our reprehension of the earlier poll results.
On the contrary, Kalonzo Musyoka and President Kibaki himself now dismiss the latest opinion polls as “fabrications, which do not portray the true picture of political developments in the country.”

A few riddles hence emerge from these erratic manifestations that Steadman opinion polls yield within the Kenyan political spectrum.

The first and most discernible logic is based purely on the natural and frankly stubborn inclination by supporters not to accede to the portrayal of their candidate of choice as trailing or having fallen behind their competition.
Kibaki, Raila, and Kalonzo supporters following this reasoning are therefore seen to conveniently validate the results whenever their respective candidates are rated highly on the polls, but traitorously throw the pollsters under the bus when the digits slip.

The second logic coming mostly from former critics of the pollsters assert that the initial pressure they put on Steadman made them change their evil ways and finally get their act together.

The third logic, points at the eminent mistrust of the public toward Steadman’s operations. George Waititu and his Steadman outfit to them is nothing short of a partisan advocacy group that conducts “push-polls” on behalf of the Kibaki government.
For instance, Raila’s popularity they say might have sky rocketed immediately after he launched his vision at KICC, but still many argue, it was NEVER as low as Steadman portrayed it to be earlier in the year.
To them Steadman was responsible for creating a mythical perception in the Kalonzo Presidency, thereby placing a stumbling block squarely on Raila’s path to becoming the ODM-K nominee.

After accomplishing this task ever so successfully, the next order of business for Mr. Waititu and his crew was to portray Kibaki as having built an insurmountable lead over his competition. (thus the initial 45% Kibaki enjoyed over Kalonzo’s 20% and Raila’s 12%)

In so doing, the public would suddenly wake up to the President ‘s potent economic credentials (and what have you) as attested by his astronomical approval ratings.

These impressive figures would also play the auxiliary role of creating a solid magnet that would attract political alliances from left right and center, thereby making it virtually impossible for any opposition traction.

According to this theory, the Kaititu boys while acknowledging their prior miscalculations, have NOW reverted to one last “bait and switch ” technique, whereby Raila’s TRUE numbers (53%) are released to “tranquilize” or cast a friendly Steadman spell on the public. THEN, As the elections draw nearer, the argument goes, expect Kibaki’s numbers to rise steadily while Raila’s numbers take a nose dive.

The hypnotized Kenyan voters of course under the “Steadman spell”, will cast their votes based on a perceived Kibaki popularity.

The fourth logic follows the same exact trail as the third logic, except Steadman’s motive this time would be to portray Kibaki on top of Raila and Kalonzo, in order to corroborate an imminent rigging of election results.

Granted, Kenyan voters are just getting acclimated to this concept of public opinion polling; whichever logic you subscribe to will soon stand the test of time……
Consigliare