Moldovan polls institution's leadership signals serious mistakes in opinion poll conducted by Public Policies Institute

Chisinau, 15 December /MOLDPRES/ - The director of the Institute of Marketing and Polls (IMAS), Doru Petruti, has signaled serious technical mistakes and inconsistencies in the Public Opinion Barometer (BOP), launched by the Public Policies Institute (IPP) on 14 December. Petruti told MOLDPRES that the poll should be withdrawn from market.     

The sociologist said that, out of the multitude of technical errors, the gravest thing was the fact that, besides the name of the party, in BOP the respondent was showed the name of the political formation’s leader. “We wonder which were the  arguments of such sociological innovations,” Petruti noted.   

“As we know well, we have the symbol and name of the party on the ballot paper in the voting booth. In conditions when there are major differences between the leaders’ reliability and the score of the party, this variant of measuring the voting preferences is the one bringing major differences in the data measured,” the IMAS director noted.  

Doru Petruti warned also about an error of content. “According to BOP data, positive developments were recorded on more indexes; at the same time, the governance’s reliability dropped by one per cent against the previous poll. On the other hand, in terms of the level of residents’ trust in politicians, BOP shows a higher rating of Orhei mayor Ilan Shor than of Prime Minister Pavel Filip, which arouses suspicions,” the IMAS director stressed.    

“The errors pointed out arouse questions dealing with the reliability of the team’s work. I am inclined to believe that misters Botan and Barbarosie (IPP) are captives of companies which provide them services, on which they have not had and now do not have any control as to quality, in fact, of its absence,” Petruti said.    

As for errors, Petruti also pointed out the inclusion in the survey of the TV channel Realiatea, which ceased working back half a year ago.   

Contacted by MOLDPRES, IPP director Arcadie Barbarosie said the IPP team was not set to withdraw BOP’s data and the errors signaled by the IMAS director are not relevant. “The data dealing with the rating of Orhei mayor Ilan Shor and Prime Minister Pavel Filip are quite close,” Barbarosie said.   

He specified that neither he nor his family members are members of any political formation. “It is my right of citizen to participate in protests which criticize or back the governance. At those rallies during which I spoke, there were people of different political orientations, people who protested against actions of the parliament which adopted the mixed voting system,” Barbarosie noted.  

At a TV programme on 14 December evening, Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu severely criticized BOP’s results, noting that this opinion poll did not unveil the realities in the society. “I doubt these opinion polls, especially BOP’s findings, as those which made them are directly involved in politics. The most important opinion poll is the vote of the citizens,” Candu said.

The Public Opinion Barometer was conducted on 18 November – 5 December, on a sample of 1,113 people from 82 settlements, with an error margin of 2.8 per cent. The opinion poll was carried out with the support of the Soros Moldova Foundation.  

(Reporter A. Zara, editor M. Jantovan)