Regulate opinion polls, Minister demand

Monday, 28 February 2011 00:02 BY JESSE MWANGI

REGULATIONS: Michuki along with ministers Murugi, Mugo and Githae called for regulation of opinion polls.

Four Cabinet ministers have said there is a need to come up with laws to regulate opinion polls conducted by pollster companies. The ministers who were speaking in Murang’a town said Prime Minister Raila Odinga was using the poll opinions to influence the public that he is people’s favourite in order to gain political mileage.

Leading the onslaught against the opinion polls, Environment Minister John Michuki termed them as a catalyst to political instability, saying they were behind the 2007/08 post-election violence.

Njeru Githae, Esther Murugi and Beth Mugo said Raila now wants to use the polls to incite his kinsmen against other communities to cause chaos in 2012. “The companies are paid to skew the outcome in favour of a certain politician and are not wholly representative. How does one purport to be popular in Central Kenya where the polls are not even conducted?" Michuki said.

The MPs also claimed that Raila was behind a research going on at Cambridge and Oxford universities abroad to depict
members of Kikuyu community in bad light.

Public Health minister Beth Mugo said the polls ought to be scientific and to represent the real situation on the ground. “Are these opinion polls aimed to incite people or tell them the truth?" she asked.