Denzil Douglas slams Peter Wickham poll; says six-month old data “is an exercise in dupery and unprofessionalism”

Photo – Dr. Denzil L. Douglas

919/2018

By: Erasmus Williams

Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 20, 2018 – Leader of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has dismissed the recent press release of the CADRES poll by regional pollster Peter Wickham as “an exercise in dupery and unprofessionalism.”

Wickham’s press release claims to have surveyed 1,000 persons across the Federation and concluded, in the main, that the Prime Minister, Dr. Timothy Harris, is the preferred leadership option of the majority of Kittitians and Nevisians as well as being the most popular within Team Unity.

Douglas, who is also Leader of the Opposition, has rejected the press release as laughable given its many obvious flaws.

“We utterly reject Peter Wickham’s press release,” said Dr. Douglas as he addressed the enthusiastic crowd of supporters at a Town Hall Meeting on Thursday night.

Outlining several reasons why he considers the report to be invalid, Dr. Douglas pointed first to the date of the poll.

In his view, the poll was conducted since May or June of 2018, almost six months ago and it is “entirely unacceptable that a poll done in May of this year is only now being reported on.

“A poll is a snapshot of people’s opinions at a particular point in time…Peter Wickham and Timothy Harris should know better,” said Dr. Douglas, who further noted that 44% of respondents refused to give an answer or was uncommitted in their support.

Of the 1,000 people who were interviewed for the poll 440 of them did not respond. This significantly reduces the sample size to just 560 which is not sufficiently representative of a population of 50,000 people.

“This renders the statement, ‘a majority of Kittitians and Nevisians are convinced that the country is on the right track/heading in the right direction’ a complete venture in hyperbole,” Dr. Douglas said.

He also noted that the poll did not ask respondents directly who they would vote for.

The only question that was asked to determine voter sentiment in this regard was ‘which party or coalition group they believed would win an election at this time.’

“The only way to find out which party someone will vote for, is to ask them the question about who they would vote for directly. No other question can substitute,” said Dr. Douglas.

In light of these many methodological flaws and deficiencies with Peter Wickham/CADRES poll, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party has completely rejected the Wickham poll results as “biased, unprofessional and useless.”

“How could anyone in his right mind treat such a poll as meaning anything?” said Dr. Douglas.

He is further of the view that rather than conveying the confidence of the people in Dr. Harris or his Team Unity coalition, the Wickham poll conveys instead the desperation of an increasingly unpopular Prime Minister trying to convince voters and his fellow cabinet ministers that he is the preferred choice of all Kittitians and Nevisians.

However, the intelligent and discerning public have completely rejected this notion, especially given Peter Wickham’s notoriety throughout the region as being a “push pollster” who only gives the results that favours his clients and whose polls are designed mainly to influence or alter the view of the voters.

The Labour Party said the people of St. Kitts and Nevis will not be easily swayed by such a clear attempt to deceive them and that the Wickham poll has only proven that Dr. Harris, whose bombastic old talk of being the one who ‘holds the “O” in the “BINGO,’ “is already quaking at the knowledge that the people have better than the ‘O,’ they have the “X” with which to evict him and his entire Team Unity cabal from office.