The fact that an opinion is widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;indeed,in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind,a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible”-Bertrand Rusell.
Opinion polls in Kenya,especially political ones are big business in Kenya and everyone is cashing in on it,especially now that it is one year to the election.
Everyone company polling Kenyans on their political opinions wants to prove to us that their have their pulse on Kenya’s political temperature and so you have a poll released to media houses every other week.Most of them are all the same ,and they all focus on presidential candidates and their parties.
From who is most popular,to whose popularity is tanking you can be sure that most of them never offer anything new.
Too often Kenyans and politicians get fixated on these polls,yet they are just opinions which are just a reflection of people beliefs and are not based on facts.
If we look at the way the polls are conducted,they never even focus on issues,to me they are just glorified popularity contests like you would expect among teenagers in high school,we should not take them too seriously.
But as a harbinger of the general political mood of Kenyans ,they are a good indicator.
How i wish they would focus less on politicians and more on what Kenyans want form their next presidential candidate.In my opinion they are just exercebating the Kenyan obsession with personality based politics that relies more on individual clout rather than on real issues that face the 40 million or so Kenyans.
We can be sure that most Kenyans political opinions are not tempered with good sense,facts or even critical thought,most of the time our opinions are clouded by ethnic bias and are often based on “facts” gained from media and most of these are never thoroughly researched too.
We forget that most politicians are like actors ,they know how to read the mood of their audiences and playing to the gallery is second nature just like breathing.Kenyans too have perfected this art among themselves,we are very adept at hiding our feelings and have a penchant for never calling out greed,impunity and blatant disregard for what it really is.
Opinion polls should not be the yard stick by which we use to form political alliances or even make decisions as to who heads this country.The search for the next Kenyan president should be based on facts and not widely held beliefs.It should be based on character,integrity,honesty,faithfulness to the constitution and a sense of servitude to the Kenyan people and the nation as a whole.
SANTINA NYAGAH 