Some political parties have attempted to buy the results of opinion polls, the representatives of polling agencies said in the political talk show V Politike, broadcast by the TA3 news channel on June 2, without specifying the names of the parties or details of the attempts. The polling agencies refused any manipulation of the poll results.
“Before the 2012 election there were three attempts to buy results in Polis agency, even through SMS,” said head of the polling agency Ján Baránek, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
Baránek described one attempt by a politician to buy poll results. In response, he offered to sell Polis to the politician, so that his or her party could produce whatever poll results they wanted. The politician responded that without Baránek, Polis is not worthy, and asked him what Polis will do in the event that other agencies bring results different from those published by his agency. Baránek responded that he would wait for the elections and concluded that he is a Catholic and that nobody has enough money to buy the name of his children, SITA wrote.
Baránek also said that when it comes to the trustworthiness of the poll results, there is no other way than to refer to the results of the pre-election polls, specifying that there were no dubious preferences.
Pavol Haulík from the MVK polling agency also said that they do not allow politicians to manipulate the poll results. He added that to order a poll does not mean to order its results. According to him, no politicians have tried to order such results, SITA wrote.
“If you stop it right in the beginning, they do not continue,” Haulík said, adding that it is not appropriate to say generally that the polls are manipulated, since it harms them. “Such approaches damage the terrain, and also politicians damage it when they say something they cannot prove. They basically undermine their own position.”
Martin Slosiarik from Focus says that the parties order the polls, but not their results.
“If the political parties even think about it, they want to know the reality as it is,” he said, as quoted by SITA.
Slosiarik assumes that Polis, MVK and Focus are not the kind of polling agencies that were established overnight, and that if they want to operate on the market for long time and be considered trustworthy, they cannot allow manipulation of poll results, SITA wrote.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
