PNM slams poll, says Ryan "consistently gets it wrong"

Basdeo Panday has already put down the latest Ryan poll, saying he has no confidence in it because the same polling group had suggested that the Congress of the People (COP) would win the 2007 general election and the United National National Congress (UNC) would run last.

Now the People's National Movement (PNM) is dismissing the survey which has suggested that it's political leader has a 16 per cent approval rating. The party said Monday Prof Selwyn Ryan consistently gets it wrong in his election polls.

The poll, which was commissioned by the Joint Consultative Council for the construction sector (JCC), has been published in the Trinidad Express.

In addition to Prime Minister Patrick Manning's poor showing the survey also suggested that a coalition of opposition forces without Panday would get the support of 29 per cent of the electorate, a full six points more than the PNM.

It also said respondents put both Manning and Panday at the bottom of the popularity chart while former cabinet minister Dr Keith Rowley was ahead of them. It also found that 70 per cent of those surveyed considered the Manning administration to be corrupt and a majority said the government has been squandering public funds.

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In a media release the party said, "The trust between our people and the only truly functioning political party in Trinidad and Tobago cannot be shaken by a pollster who has consistently been getting it wrong for the last 30 years particularly given his employer in this poll."

The PNM added, "Given the outcome of the November 5, 2007 general election where the PNM won 26 seats, its largest ever majority, despite a pre-election poll from Prof Ryan which suggested the exact opposite, it would have been expected that Prof Ryan would have retired from the polling business or the Express would have begun to dismiss his findings."

The PNM said Ryan not only got it wrong in 2007, but it happened with the general elections of 2002, 1995, 1991 and 1986.

Commenting on the 2007 projections from Ryan, the party "despite being projected to possibly win the election, the Congress of the People (COP) won not a single seat and was even beaten by the UNC which Ryan had written off".

It noted that Ryan was also wrong in 1995 when he predicted a PNM victory and it said the most glaring was the 1986 election when Ryan also suggested a PNM victory. In that election the PNM was swept out of office, retaining only three of the 36 seats in Parliament.

With respect to the 1986 poll, Ryan told the Express he would have to check his data but he didn't recall seeing the PNM in a positive light.

"This attack requires me to go back to my data which I have to excavate. What I really said, I don’t remember all the details of it, I remember in 1986 I predicted an earthquake that would fundamentally destroy the PNM," Ryan told the paper.

He challenged the PNM claims regarding the findings of his polls for the general elections since 1986 and said the party's criticisms don't surprise him.

"I am very familiar the way the parties respond to polls. They have to question the accuracy and legitimacy of it when it does not favour them," Ryan said.

The PNM said the poll is biased and suggested that is because it was financed by the JCC "as part of its on-going campaign against our party’s leader, the PNM and the Government."

Ryan dismissed that charge saying he anticipated it. And he insisted that he is not for sale. "The JCC cannot buy me. There is no way my integrity is up for sale."