Local stakeholders proposed 70 questions for IRI Poll

May 01, 2022 News

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… 20 percent response rate represents inability to finish questionnaires

Kaieteur News – Information from the recently completed International Republican Institute (IRI) poll questioning local views on a number of topical and even contentious matters is expected to be used to gauge, among other things, the atmosphere surrounding the business of election and offer useful insights for the work of stakeholders involved.

IRI itself is a United States based organisation that assists countries toward clearer democratic paths through engagements with stakeholders including those from the media, government, opposition, political parties, and electoral agency, among others.
During an IRI hosted media workshop at the Cara Lodge on Saturday, Resident Programme Director, Dorota Ryzy explained that much work was put into the lead up to the IRI poll. She said that prior to the poll being commissioned and as part of IRI’s participatory approach, the agency actively engaged with a wide range of actors and stakeholders from May to October 2021.
Consultations were held with government ministries, institutions, civil society bodies, political parties, religious representatives, private sector, workers’ unions and Indigenous Peoples and many others. The input from those stakeholders yielded some 100 contributions and recommendations, and out of those consultations, 70 questions were proposed to improve the design of the poll.
Ryzy noted that in January, while the poll was being conducted, the IRI also held a series of webinars to explain the methodology, and the stringent ethical standards the polling goes through and how the data gathered can be reviewed and utilised. Those webinars were recorded and shared with the stakeholders, the in-country representative stated.
She noted, however, that the actual poll involved face-to-face interaction across all 10 regions in Guyana asking the opinions of 1500 Guyanese. The 1500 is the realised sample with about 20 percent response rate. It was explained, that while the response rate is on the lower end, it was due to the number of questions the poll asked; so much so that some of the interviews had to be aborted.
“Thus, 1500 responses were received and the results of poll are based on the opinions of those who were fully interviewed,” Ryzy said, adding that in order to give the 1500 sample, a lot more people had to be interviewed. She said therefore, roughly 7000 persons were reached to have the realised sample.
The April released IRI poll has stated in terms of elections that more than 80 percent of Guyanese think electoral reform is needed, and although most of them voted, they really don’t trust the process. More than half of those who participated thought that electoral reform was “very necessary” and they highlighted several areas of concern to them.
The IRI lead poll has nonetheless met some rejection by particularly some members of government. Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira dubbed the poll’s findings “very questionable” in the state media. The government information department reported that Teixeira believed the poll lacked “integrity” and did not reflect the feelings of Guyanese. She said that the 20 percent response rate could not answer for all Guyanese. She said too that after reading the questions of the poll, the need to consider whether persons clearly interpreted the questions arose. Among many other observations made by the minister, she questioned how the poll could have asked about not being registered to vote when the 18-year-old respondents were not even of age to be registered.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo also accused the IRI of structuring its poll in such a way to boost its position for funding. He said that the IRI came to Guyana and played a huge role in ensuring democracy here in Guyana. But if the agency needed to justify funding to do its work, Jagdeo did not believe the poll was the way to go about it, “because I believe many of the answers are contrived in a manner to support their case for raising money.” The VP had also indicated that the 20 percent, 300 persons, were used to extrapolate on the size and composition of the population. However, whether the government wants to continue work with the IRI, Jagdeo said the answer is a “resounding yes.”
To understand the work of the IRI, the agency said it has polled more than 1.5 m people in over 100 countries having conducted over 1000 polls. In some countries, IRI polls are done very regularly and the information is used by different stakeholders for their own information.
In Guyana, the IRI’s work is twofold; providing technical assistance and aiding to improve the electoral process, while supporting neutral spaces for dialogue. Saturday’s media engagement was the first of another series of rich discussions. The information from the dialogue and other related sit downs will be consolidated in a final report before being shared with the relevant programme stakeholders. All the information gathered is shared equally with those stakeholders, IRI has noted.

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