WERE they ‘stale’ or ‘fictitious’ poll results?

Donald Buchanan, general secretary of the ruling People’s National Party (PNP), Thursday night lashed Nationwide News (radio) Network for the broadcast of allegedly “stale poll results” showing the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) with a “constituency by constituency” lead over the PNP.

“I say shame upon you, Nationwide, shame upon you Nationwide, you should know better than that. It would appear to me that you are losing your intellectual integrity, Nationwide, you better come back on track if you want to have any credibility in Jamaica.,” Buchanan shouted to a large crowd of PNP supporters at an election rally in Lacovia, North-West St Elizabeth late Thursday.

Buchanan, who is also information minister and outgoing member of parliament for North-West St Elizabeth, claimed the poll results which were broadcast earlier Thursday were arrived at as far back as October, November and December last year.

Buchanan told the Observer that the findings being banded about vaguely resemble poll findings more than six months old.

“What I have heard are results of polls we had commissioned prior to the selection of candidates between October and December last year when we were polling for the process of the selection contest,” Buchanan said. “What they have aired relates to nothing we have done since the start of this year.”

He said the PNP has commissioned no polls which would have led to the kind of findings aired. Buchanan said, too, that the news report by Nationwide suggested that there was new information and new poll findings.

The PNP general secretary also insisted that the poll result was not consistent with any electoral tracking the PNP was doing or had done in recent times.

The poll was allegedly done by pollster Bill Johnson. But Johnson, who has conducted polls for the PNP and newspaper polls, yesterday denied that he had done any such constituency polls. He told Radio Jamaica that the results read to him contained information and findings which he had not done. He also said the action was a deliberate plot to discredit him.

In the meantime, information reaching the Observer is that the disputed poll findings involve at least 15 constituencies, and has data going back to 1944.

While some PNP officials yesterday described the distribution of the poll results as criminal, Buchanan was more measured in his description, calling it fictitious.

Buchanan, however, confirmed that Johnson attended last weekend’s National Executive Council meeting of the PNP at the Jamaica Conference Centre and addressed candidates about important constituency issues.

Among the issues he addressed, he said, were “things that were picked up in the constituencies” and which will be advantageous to the candidates.

In the meantime, Buchanan appeared to accuse Nationwide of a deliberate attempt to “confuse” Jamaicans ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“.If you want to know the facts, pick up your telephone and call me like you call me about other things and I will talk to you and give you the facts,” said Buchanan Thursday night.

“But don’t come with your lies and your stale polls to try and confuse the people of Jamaica because the Jamaican people cannot be confused, not by you and not by anybody else. I say shame upon you Nationwide.”

Johnson’s polling technique has been criticised since the last general elections in St Lucia, which he got wrong.

In a poll released just before the election, Johnson had said that the ruling party led by Dr Kenny Anthony would have won the elections. However, the elections were won by the Opposition party, led by John Compton.