POLITRICKS: Why Dickson will lose in Bayelsa poll, pollster insists….

… Survey a fraud – PDP

Pollster, an Election Frontline (EF), on Monday described as unfortunate an attempt by the Governor of Bayelsa State, Mr. Seriake Dickson, to fault its survey on the December 5 governorship election in the state.

EF had predicted landslide victory for the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the poll, Chief Timipre Sylva.

The EF in a statement signed by its Survey Administrator, Macpepple Joshua, said the claim by the governor and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the survey was sponsored by the APC was far from the truth.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Election Frontline is not a political NGO and our members remain non-partisan. The reaction by the PDP also said we conducted a similar survey predicting victory for Chief Sylva when he contested the Bayelsa East Senatorial election against Senator Ben Murray-Bruce of the PDP in the last April general election.

“This is a blatant lie and false as Election Frontline never carried out a survey on that particular election. If the PDP government has an evidence, it should be made public. For clarification, our NGO has no affiliation to the All Progressives Congress and as a matter of fact with any political parties,” it said.

The EF added that in the survey, it clearly recognized that the PDP was still very rooted in Bayelsa State being a party that had been in power since 1999.

But it said the findings of the survey, however, said the election would not be decided based on the strength of the various political parties but on certain ingredients of democratic principles bothering on the socio-economic development of the people.

It said: “We, hereby, stand by the result of our survey and that even staff in the Bayelsa State Government House including attached security men will rather vote for the APC than returning the incumbent Governor, who has impoverished them with no cut-out welfare package for them.

“The survey conducted in the eight local government areas of the state with 1,000 respondents revealed that majority of the people would vote the APC just to oust the incumbent Governor, Seriake Dickson of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), for his alleged poor economic policies.

“In the analysis of the data generated from the field, the election is clearly being contested by three candidates, described as serious minded candidates.

“They are the incumbent, Seriake Dickson of the PDP, who is seeking re-election, former Governor, Timipre Sylva of the APC and the 35-year old young entrepreneur, Moses Siloko Siasia of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM).”

But the PDP again, discredited the polling firm and still claimed it was sponsored by APC.

The party through the Director of Publicity of the Restoration Campaign Organisation (RCO), Jonathan Obuebite, described EF as an “emergency polling firm” with no track record of having conducted any election survey anywhere.

Obuebite said the whole efforts by the firm were nothing but a fraud.

The Nation