How to reduce tension, assure Kenyans of peace during polls

Supporters of Raila Odinga react after the Supreme Court nullified the 2017 Presidential election. [File, Standard]

With only 22 days left before voting day, tensions and anxieties are heightened on all fronts. It is important for those conducting opinion polls to confine themselves within the law, the Publication of Electoral Opinion Polls Act, No. 39 of 2012, and remain faithful to the science.

Skewed opinion polls aimed at influencing perceptions as a way of drumming up support for one or other candidate can be detrimental to the electoral environment and to democracy and can incite voters against each other. It is not clear how two opinion polls ostensibly conducted in the same geographical areas within almost the same period or within differential timelines which do not exceed two months, can be so remarkably different.