With barely 10 days left to the February 18th presidential elections, President Museveni will sleep comfortably following the latest opinion poll results showing he will win by 65%.
Museveni campaigning
In its latest research done between 26th and 30th January 2011, the Afrobarometer says President Yoweri Museveni of the National resistance Movement is still leading with 65% of those interviewed saying they would vote him.
The closest contender, Inter party Cooperation/ Forum for Democratic Change’s Dr. Kiiza Beisgye got 15% in the opinion poll (slight improvement from the 12% in the earlier poll).
Nobert Mao of the Democratic Party is still in 3rd place with 3% up from the 2% recorded in the December poll, with Uganda Federal Alliance’s Betty Olive Namisnago Kamya coming fourth with 2% up from 1% in the December poll.
However the reliability of Afrobarometer researches have been under question by some members of the opposition who claim that Afrobarometer is funded by the ruling government therefore their statistical figures are corrupted.
But Robert Sentamu, the Chairman of Afrobarometer says they are an independent research firm and were hired by the Deepening Democracy programme to carry out the opinion polls.
He says their latest report includes results from interviews with 2,000 respondents in 250 villages across the country, though it was not possible to independently verify statistics nor the appropriateness of the methodology used and type of questions asked.