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{
    "id": 45033,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/45033/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 212,
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    "content": "If you come to the most contentious elections of 2007, I have heard arguments about a presidential candidate who was ahead and later on started to lose ground. The answer was obvious. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the outcome was obvious. There was a feeling in this country that there would be a position of a Prime Minister, somehow and that somebody was supposed to be a Prime Minister while another one was supposed to be the President. Therefore, supporters of that candidate had assumed and believed that their candidate would be the Prime Minister and that the other person who was also a presidential candidate would be supported by their preferred candidate. When it turned out that the person who was earlier assumed to be the Prime Minister designate or would be the Prime Minister was now running for presidency, definitely the support shifted and you could see the predictions of the opinion polls showing different figures. That cannot be blamed on the opinion pollsters. Recently we held a referendum in this country on the new Constitution. All the pollsters predicted the correct outcome of the result. Therefore, blaming the pollsters for making mistakes in their predictions is not a good reason. I think the hon. Member should be candid enough to tell us that the results of the opinion polls do not favour his political grouping. The results of the opinion polls do not favour his presidential candidate of choice. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, even the 2007 election that is being talked about and maligned that the opinion pollsters did not predict the correct outcome, I remember that these pollsters gave a close contest. Even though the results were reversed, they gave a close contest where one candidate would win but number two would have a close margin. It turned out that candidate “B” was declared a winner while candidate “A” followed or trailed him with a small margin, but we all know the reasons behind it. Some people may dispute it but some of us know what happened. This cannot be blamed on pollsters. If you start regulating pollsters and, worse still, put this body under the office of the Vice-President, who himself has confessed that he will be a presidential candidate in 2012, what you are saying is that you want the pollsters in this country to be controlled by the Office of the Vice-President; the occupant of which office is a presidential candidate. Therefore, you will not solve the problem you are set to solve. What you will be doing is to make it worse. You will be putting pollsters under the hands of one presidential candidate. This is a Motion that I did not expect to ever appear on the Order Paper in this House. I never expected any Member of Parliament, in his wisdom, to bring such a Motion to be debated in this House. I urge this House to ignore this Motion."
}