Pollster defends results of latest study
The results of the latest public opinion poll conducted by the University of Belize have created quite a stir on the local political scene. On one hand the United Democratic Party has endorsed the survey which produced statistics largely in their favour. But members of the People’s United Party have dismissed the facts and figures as nothing more than the biased product of the Opposition, working through an ardent supporter, Yasmine Andrews. Andrews provided the technical assistance to U.B. through the Saint John’s College Belizean Studies Research Centre. Today she defended the results reflected in the “Peoples Perspective of Elections 2008” as valid and reliable.
Yasmine Andrews, Pollster
“Janelle when you are doing polls of things that have to do with politics, especially in a small country like Belize, it’s a highly sensitive issue and now with the advent of third parties and all these independent parties, even then we’d have a lot of questions and reservations about it. But if they look at the results, I think overall, this poll is very encouraging for third parties which have just started. The People’s United Party did fairly well up in the north, the United Democratic Party did fairly well down south where they have never done well before so at the end of the day it’s for each party to look at the results and use it as how they see fit. But we here at the centre try to be as objective as possible and it’s only a matter of time that we again will be proven to be accurate.”
Janelle Chanona
“Now we know in your other life you do write an opinion piece for the Guardian newspaper, are you feeling that maybe people are saying that you skewed the results in one particular way?”
Yasmine Andrews
“Yes, and Janelle it’s only rational for people to believe that because of what I do outside of Belizean Studies Resource Centre so I hold nothing against anyone for that. It’s natural, I would actually be as sceptical as any member of the public out there and that is a part of being scholarly and intellectual, we should not be gullible to any type of information. So for them to question that, I fully welcome that type of scepticism and that is why I ask them to come into the centre, look at the hard data, go over the statistical analysis, get a statistician, bring them with you or take the data if you want and do the entire test again. You look at our methodology, look at the phone numbers you can take them and look at where names are and if that needs to convince you then that should convince you.”
According to Andrews, as part of ongoing outreach efforts to promote research, other collaborative polls between S.J.C. and U.B. are planned for the future.
