Wolf: I wasn’t fired for corruption poll

Former Ipsos lead researcher Tom Wolf has refuted claims that he was fired because of a poll showing the most corrupt Government officials.

In an exclusive interview with KTN’s PointBlank last night, Dr Wolf said that he still did not know why he was sacked after a 15-year stint with the pollster that had become synonymous with him.

He, however, ruled out political interference.

“I was given a notice according to my terms of contract, which had some considerable time to run, so that my last day of work was March 31. And that was the end of the position of political analyst.

“I didn’t know the reason why the company made that decision and up to date I have no idea. I would have thought if there was any political interference or anything like that I would have been terminated long before March. I don’t really know the reason and I am not sure if I will ever find out,” said Wolf.

Wolf said that in the last survey whose results he announced, Ipsos asked the respondents what was the most serious challenge affecting them in their locality. The majority, he added, mentioned corruption with respondents naming top public officials they deemed as most corrupt.

“I stand by the report. I never had any managerial responsibility. I was just an analyst. I never made any decisions on what was to be released. I had no authority in terms of what goes out,” he said.

Wolf said the results of the corruption question reflected perceptions created by the media since there has never been any conviction or factual basis for them.

Defending polls released by Ipsos (then Steadman) in the run-up to the 2007 General Election, Wolf said that samples of the surveys were scientifically allocated. The final survey put opposition leader Raila Odinga at 45 per cent and President Mwai Kibaki at 43 per cent.

7,000 respondents

He said the pollster used a sample of 7,000 respondents instead of the usual 2,000 for the poll to be able to do regional analysis.

He claimed that prior to the elections, one of the country’s dailies was partly funding four other companies to conduct surveys.

“There were two survey companies that gave Mr Odinga a 10-point lead in their final surveys. Steadman only gave him a two-point advantage,” said Wolf.

On whether pollsters can fuel violence with their predictions, Wolf pointed out that presentations made before Justice Johan Kriegler’s commission indicated that the firms could have fueled the 2007 post-election violence.

However, Justice Kriegler exonerated pollsters from the violence. In his report, Kriegler acknowledged that certain individuals had cited pollsters showing Raila leading Kibaki as one of the contributing factors to the violence.

“His conclusion was No. Let us not blame the pollsters for this. But he (Kriegler) said we need to have better training for journalists so that people don’t worship these polls as they are, but as estimates,” said Wolf.

Wolf maintained that in a democracy, pollsters have a right to find out what people think.

On whether the political class had infiltrated the opinion polls to swing results in their favour, Wolf said this was not possible.

“Someone would have to buy or coerce or somehow influence all of us without anybody spilling the beans,” he said.

Wolf decried the low number of market and media research firms in the country, citing the example of the US where 15 polling firms conduct President Donald Trump’s approval ratings.

“Here we are dangerously exposed because we just have a few pollsters,” he said.

The researcher also denied being a foreign agent, saying he only came to the country as a member of the Peace Corps on the persuasion of a former college mate.