The country's five top polling companies refused to conduct a survey requested by the Millennium Democratic Party and National Alliance 21 to select a single presidential candidate from their selected nominees. They gave many reasons for this, but basically they said a poll was not a tool to make important political decisions such as selecting a candidate. There was also the fear that they would be involved in any disputes if they engaged in the survey.

This is a confession reconfirming that selecting a single candidate through a single survey is incomplete, as a poll interprets a given trend, or poll, not a vote in the voting booth.

The two parties claim that there are many safety devices to prevent unwanted interference, but they disregarded the limits of error, a basic in statistics, saying they would accept even a 0.1 percent difference; an extremely strange method of selecting as presidential candidate.

This method, the first ever in the world, should never be repeated. That pollsters themselves refused to be involved in this shows just how comical it is. If they really wanted a single candidate it would have been better for them to have met and discussed their positions, and one should have resigned. A poll has limits and should not be used to decide such matters.

(November 25, 2002)