The National People’s Party has approved an opinion poll conducted by Centre for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (CepRass), that put the party in the lead in December presidential election, but the opposition parties rejected the survey as bogus.
“President Adama Barrow continues to enjoy support from Gambians as a result of his unwavering efforts in transforming the country to a city state where all amenities: water, electricity, roads infrastructure, sports, recreational facilities, agriculture, educational and health facilities are provided in every nook and cranny of The Gambia. As a party, we are encouraged to live by our ardent desire of fulfilling our shared goals and policies of delivering services to improve the lives and livelihoods of our people.
“There should be no illusions that the Party will seriously examine the entire report to see how to improve its rating in future polls. His Excellency’s just concluded constitutionally mandated nationwide tour, speaks to the appreciation with which Gambians hold him. Thousands greeted him with enthusiasm and fanfare in meeting venues while tens of thousands lined up in the streets and waved the motorcade of a man they described as “development oriented,” the party said.
“The Secretary General and Party Leader of NPP-led grand coalition re-assured Gambians of our relentless commitment to continue serving them on the path of good governance, democracy, rule of law, a just and free society necessary in a democratic space post 2021 Insha Allah,” it added.
However, Gambia Democratic Congress Diaspora Public Relations Officer (PRO) Dodou A. B Ndow dismissed the poll saying “we challenge the CepRass Election Opinion Poll in its totality. This survey does not reflect the reality on the ground. Moreover, the methodology is not reliable for such a variable result produced.”
He said the sample of participants for the survey were selective and could not be random in the manner taken, adding “percentages led by the ruling party NPP, GDC, UDP among others do not reflect the percentage of what matters to the people, unemployment, Agriculture, health, education and security on the CepRass report.
“We can remember the Opinion polls of Banjul’s last Mayoral Election when it was opined that [ranked] Ebou Faye 1st, Lizzy Eunson 2nd, the late Lie Bah 3rd, while Rohey Malick Lowe last. The actual results came out totally different. The last two came out first two.
Meanwhile, Sheriffo Sonko, a member of the United Democratic Party said: “the survey is completely bogus because the system they use is the one they use in 2018 during Banjul Mayoral Elections. During that survey, they said Rohey Malick will take last but she took first. They said the late Lie Bah will take third and he took second. We as a party have already done our own survey. We already know the places that we were not having support but we have now built up a new system in all those places to control those places. We can say the survey is not true. All of the Gambia knows the only place the president has support is URR and as we speak right now, we are dominating URR,” he said.
