POLLSTER Don Anderson’s prediction that the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) is on track to triumph in a close poll has not gone unnoticed by the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

However, the JLP campaign director Karl Samuda, while not discrediting Anderson as a pollster with a good reputation, yesterday pointed to three recent instances when his polls were way off the actual outcome in elections.

Samuda said Anderson’s poll was the only one of the three major pollsters that showed the PNP clearly ahead. “The party does not in any try to diminish the work of a professional,” he said. “What I would say is Don’s polls have deviated somewhat from the others.”

According to Samuda, occasions in which Anderson’s polls were of the mark were:

* In 2007, Anderson wrongly predicted that Audley Shaw would lose North East Manchester; Shaw won the seat by 1,400 votes.

* In the West Portland by-election of 2008, Anderson polls showed the race between Daryl Vaz and Rowe to be neck-and-neck; Vaz won by over 2,200 votes.

* In the 2009 North East St Catherine by-election between the JLP’s Gregory Mair and the PNP’s Granville Valentine, Anderson’s poll showed Valentine enjoying 35 per cent support to Mair’s 32 per cent. Mair won by 2,600 votes.

The JLP campaign director said a 36-27 win for the JLP was in keeping with the party’s canvassing, while Anderson has predicted a likely 34-29 seat win for the PNP.

Said Samuda: “I hear Don Anderson talking about 28 safe PNP seats. For a moment I thought he was looking in the wrong column, because that is exactly what I have — 28 safe Jamaica Labour Party seats.”

Samuda said contrary to Anderson’s poll which showed a close race in West Central St Catherine, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Kenneth Baugh would easily retain his seat “perhaps with an increased majority”.

He also predicted a clear victory for Joan Gordon-Webley in East Rural St Andrew, Danville Walker should win Central Manchester in a tight race, but admitted Laurence Broderick would be hard pressed to retain North Clarendon.

In the meantime, Samuda condemned the shooting up of a JLP rally in Savanna-la-mar, Westmoreland by gunmen as vicious and reprehensible and perhaps “the worst act of political violence in the past two elections”.

However, he said this departure from an otherwise relatively peaceful campaign would not influence the outcome of the poll. “The people we have spoken with today are resolute to come and vote no matter what,” he said.