{UAH} What you should know about the January 12 opinion poll

What you should know about the January 12 opinion poll

In Summary

The story was conceived and ultimately published without proper oversight, contrary to current guidelines.

This past Monday, the Daily Monitor published a poll with the headline "Poll puts Museveni ahead of Mbabazi." The results showed that, as of when the poll was conducted in December 2014, 57 per cent of the voters would support President Museveni, while only 6 per cent would support former prime minister Amama Mbabazi. (Mathematically, the poll shows that total of 43 per cent would support other or no other candidates against the incumbent.)

The results, surprising to many, and its presentation resulted in many people questioning the poll's veracity, whether it had been sanctioned by the Daily Monitor and whether outside influences were at play.

"It has been alleged that the results are falsified by Ipsos and smuggled into the Monitor newspaper," Ipsos Managing Director Virginia Nkwanzi-Isinoma wrote in an email yesterday at our request for comment and confirmation. "There are also allegations that Ipsos was bribed by the ruling party to falsify the poll," she wrote. "We would like to clarify to the readers and the general public that this opinion poll is authentic and was commissioned by Monitor Publication Limited. The results were formally released to Monitor Publications Limited on January, 9."

As for us, we do admit there are issues on our part for which we are both concerned and are addressing. The key one is that normal editing procedures were circumvented regarding the questions asked in the poll and the process by which the poll results were published. The story was conceived and ultimately published without proper oversight, contrary to current guidelines. In other words, editors who should have been involved were not notified or consulted. That situation has been addressed to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Because of that lack of involvement by key editors and because the presentation focused on a great number of possible Opposition candidates, it made each of the relatively small percentages regarding support create a perception of "weakness" in any of the possible challengers to the incumbent, particularly as it relates to Mr Mbabazi in the lead headline. That was not the intent, and those aspects should have been presented differently and put in better perspective.

As for the reporter, Yasiin Mugerwa, he is an innocent party in all of this, simply doing what any good reporter does: Take the facts and, under the direction of a senior editor, present those facts as best possible. And he had no role in its presentation.

Two promises:
There will be other polls conducted in the months and days leading up to the election. And we can assure you that greater care will be taken at each step in the process – from the questions asked to the final presentation – so that the information doesn't confuse and mislead, as last Monday's effort did, but enlightens and informs.
Those are promises we will keep.

Mr Gibson is the executive editor, Monitor Publications Limited.

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H.OGWAPITI
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that  we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic  and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

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