Vision 2011 and Beyond Coalition says it will soon start conducting nationwide opinion polls on Presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.
Vision 2011 and Beyond Coalition Executive Director Patrick Mukosha said the opinion poll will be conducted monthly until elections through mobile cellular phones.
Mr. Mukosha said the opinion polls will be conducted among the three major political parties United Party for National Development (UPND), Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and Patriotic Front (PF).
He said the opinion polls are aimed at monitoring and ascertaining the popularity of political parties and their candidates in all the nine provinces.
“During our preliminary research, we discovered that only three political parties namely MMD,PF , and UPND has representation in all provinces and are the ones claiming to be popular than the other and each one is bubbling with confidence that they will form the next government. It is for this reason that our research was narrowed to these three political parties” he said.
He added that the opinion poll is also aimed at stimulating interest and boost morale among the electorate in the country.
Mr. Mukosha said in a statement to ZANIS in Lusaka today that this will be one way to encourage the spirit of togetherness, co-existence and reduce violence among the general populace.
“We will give the general public a true and fair view of the popularity of the political parties and each aspiring presidential candidate every month leading to the 2011 polls.” He said.
He explained that the research project will help the country in building confidence and credibility in the country’s electoral system.
Mr. Mukosha said the opinion poll exercise have been prepared in a manner that is easy for anyone to participate using the Short Message System (SMS)
Meanwhile, the Vision 2011 and Beyond Coalition Director observed that stakeholders and political players in the electoral process have been compromised.
He said the stakeholders have divided with others supporting the ruling party while some are supporting the opposition.
Mr. Mukosha added that this scenario has resulted in the country having uneven level political playing field.
ZANIS
THE MMD just want to know the places where they have strong and weak holds
A welcome idea. Let’s play.
ALL THE THREE IN PICTURE,ARE USING LATEST&NEW CELLULAR MOBILE PHONES.. WE NEED REAL CHANGE….HHHHH
#1 Doh! What is your point exactly? Isn’t that what elections are about for the govt and the opposition? Talk about stating the most blindingly obvious!
How will they ensure that one person does not participate more than once? Also is a mobile the best way of gathering data? I know that the level of mobile penetration has increased in recent years but does this not discriminate against those who can not afford one or those who live in remote areas where you may not be able to get signals who might be disproportionately female?
Fake reseach. You can select many times by changing sim cards on the same mobile phone,
This is not exactly scientific, but good for the pocket.
Good Idea but they will not implement it properly bkoz its a stolen concept from some guy in ndola. We know they want to start charging Pipo K2000 per SMS.
Rubish research!
You can easily cheat by changing sim cards in the same phone and select all the participants on different sim cards as many times as you are subjective. Fake survey.
#10 Dr
but what will be the points of one wasting his time and money to change sims and vote many times – to show that one candidate is popular. This is just a political game like any other. It will definately be biased to people in towns, those with some few kwachas to throw around and probably the young people. Whoever will think the results of this poll will be indicative of the outcome of general elections will probably be taking things very lightly. It may be indicative of the urban vote tho.
When will these pollsters understand that in order for a poll to be scientifically sound the sample of the population must be randomly selected and every member of the population must have the same probability of being selected.
The man is just making noise. Have they sensitise all the people about this same opinion poll, Really what about those who do not have cellphones, there are lot of such people. Some people have got phones just for paging, they cannot afford to send an SMS. Whoever is funding this activity is just wasting his cash.
I hope this particular research will take into account respondents that will actually vote and not just every tom dick and harry that has a phone otherwise it wont show the real picture.
some of us hAVE MANY PHONES AND IM CARDS SINCE WE ARE IN AND OUT OF THE COUNTRY MANY TIMES. WHEM WE HAVE A LOST A SIM CARD WE BUY ANOTHER ONE, THEN WE FIND THAT WE DID NOT ACTUALLY LOST IT AND IT IS WORTH USING AGAIN, IN THE END WE HAVE ACCUMULATED MANY SIM CARDS AND THEY ARE CHEAP IN ZAMBIA, SO IT WILL STILL BE A SUBJECTIVE AND MANUPILATIVE SURVEY, AND WILL STILL REMAIN FAKE
so not scientific survey, there are many educated zambians out there in the Diasporra, who are not on these rubbish blogs, you mambalas. take when we come back home, i can assure you the competition will be stiffer than than RB vs Sata Vs HH, IDOITS
#5 good point u have said everything and nothing to add on thank you
You NEVER conduct option polls through SMS, one person can send hundreds of texts in favor of his/her candidate.
And not all voters have cell phone participate in the option poll, hence the method of using SMS is not representative of the population and can be easily be manipulated by cadres who can send several text messages.
It’ll be a very subjective & unreliable research. Even if they were to use serial numbers of phones for identity, it’ll fail as some people have more than one phone & on all the three networks.
Another propaganda by the mmd.they only want to know the provinces they have lost popularity and to raise money for campains through sms.what of those people with no phones for instance those who live in rural areas because the majority dont have a phone and those who own more than one phone,do you think he/she will just vote for onece and live the other phones in no use?
Thats why ZED can never develop! Whenever someone brings up some, contribute positively and perhaps advise what needs to be done to at least get the survey workable! DO NOT shoot all the way. Supposing the survey is to see which Leader is popular amoungst Phone holders?Or is it to find out which class of people supports which leader? I wouldnt prefer to be popular amoungst I Dio ts. The urban is the best place to be popular!
#15 I think you are FAKE Doctor, Dr. Akol. You are the biggest I D I O T out there and am glad you are not anywhere near Zambia because we don’t need big mouthed I D I O T S like you in Zambia and kudos to whoever facilitated your export from this country.
This is a survey and who told you that a scientific survey has to be 100% accurate. Medical drugs get approved and released to the public if they just have a success rate of 50% and that is considered high in medical research. Of course every survey has + or – errors for obvious reasons. Learn to be objective. This, I think is a great move and a great initiative and needs to be commended and supported
Let us try it despite all its shortcomings. Am just worried at the cost. Make it affordable.
Wen somebody releases a statement to zanis u know which side they are
Its all MMD scheme! Can Zanis file a story which has no MMD backing? Forget those who want to waste their time and money can participate in this MMD scheme.