Antigua, May 20th 2014 - Antiguans, Barbudans and other residents of our region can recognise the symbols of election season. One such symbol is the appearance of numerous competing polls in newspapers that often predict staggeringly different outcomes.
In some cases, these polls are designed to genuinely gather knowledge about likely voting choices amongst the population. In others, however, "scientific polling" exists merely to tell political parties and their supporters what they want to hear.
The airtime and column inches devoted to polls are understandably driven by the media's desire to talk about an election, but journalists have a responsibility to sift through competing polls and understand what biases and prejudices may be at work.
One pollster who has recently been active in presenting predictions regarding the results of our upcoming election in Antigua and Barbuda is Peter Wickham, head of the regional polling firm CADRES.
Wickham has been publicly stating his belief that one side of our political landscape will be successful in the coming contest, but his past record should give both Mr Wickham and other observers cause for concern.
In 2006, Wickham predicted that the St. Lucia Labour Party would win the elections there. The United Workers Party won a comfortable victory.
In 2008, Mr Wickham reported that the Granadian election would be won by the New National Party. Instead, the National Democratic Congress was victorious.
Last year, the Bajan Mr Wickham tried predicting the election in his home country, stating publicly that the Barbados Labour Party would be the victor. Even in his homeland, however, his "scientific" techniques were proven wrong as the Democratic Labour Party remained in government after the votes had been counted.
One probable cause for Wickham's difficulty in accurately predicting outcomes could be his stated preference for a form of polling known as "swing analysis", which was popular worldwide in the 1980s and 1990s. In most parts of the world, however, this technique yielded highly inaccurate results in a number of contests and has been largely abandoned.
In the 1992 United Kingdom election, for example, swing analysis predicted a win for the UK Labour Party. This prediction proved to be well wide of the mark, however, and the people of the UK delivered a fourth consecutive comfortable victory for the reigning Conservatives. The British newspapers had completely bought the idea that the Conservatives would lose, and such was the level of embarrassment amongst the UK’s major polling firms after their error that they abandoned swing analysis entirely in favour of other methods that have since proven more accurate.
Interestingly enough, the incorrect swing analysis performed in the UK in 1992 predicted a win for a Labour Party, as have most of Peter Wickham's predictions in the Caribbean. While we are confident that Peter Wickham has no affiliation with UK Labour, we leave it to our fellow Antiguans and Barbudans to decide if his frequent "scientific" preference for Labour parties in the Caribbean is coincidence, or something else. The fact that Mr Wickham is a columnist for the Carib Times, a publication that appeared from nowhere before our election and seems very friendly towards the Opposition, may also be coincidence.
Regardless, the time is rapidly approaching for all polls and predictions to become irrelevant. Polls come and polls go, but we all know that there is only one poll that truly matters; the poll on election day. The UPP is eagerly awaiting the results of that particular poll on June 12th, and we are confident that the people of Antigua and Barbuda will make the right choice.
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