A survey conducted for The Brenthurst Foundation by the so-called non-partisan London-based SABI Strategy Group says Zimbabwe's opposition leader Nelson Chamisa is surging ahead of President Mnangagwa - 53 percent to 40 percent - among those who are likely to vote in the harmonised 2023 elections.
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample.
Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals.
It is expected that in the months leading to the elections, dubious pollsters across the country will usually make outrageous predictions.
The little known Sabi Strategy Group predicted an easy sweep for the CCC nominee Nelson Chamisa.
From Harare to Bulawayo everyone knows what will happen. Media outlets and pollsters will be licking their wounds for failing to project a victory for Zanu PF.
This time, dubious forecasters are making assumptions that the opposition is winning basing on a survey of few people. But as votes will be tabulated after elections, nervous viewers and pollsters will begin to experience a sense of déjà vu.
Once again, more ballots will be indicating towards President Mnangagwa; more than what the survey has projected.
In the past decade we have witnessed the failure of these polls and surveys in predicting presidential election outcomes across the world.
To understand the reasons behind these failures we analyse the raw data of a trusted pollster which failed to predict, along with others, the 2018 presidential election in Zimbabwe.
Analysis of the data from longitudinal surveys performed before and after the elections reveals clear biases related to misrepresentation of the population and, most importantly, to social-desirability biases such as the tendency of respondents to hide their intention to vote for controversial candidates.
The reasons for the failure of pollsters to predict elections are believed to be many.
Firstly, the percentage of responses to traditionally conducted surveys has decreased and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people's opinion.
Response rates in telephone polls with live interviewers continue to decline, and it has reached a 6 percent lower limit recently.
Response rates could be even lower for other methodologies, like internet polling or interactive voice response.
Compounded with declining response rates, is the problem of misrepresentation of the survey samples.
That is, the sample surveyed by pollsters does not represent the demographic distributions of the general population.
This problem is worsened by re-weighting the surveys sample according to the general demographics of the population in a process called sample-balancing or raking.
These problems have led to some commentators to argue that "polling is irrevocably broken," that pollsters should be ignored, or that "the polling industry is a wreck, and should be blown up."
Zimbabwe's elections are not predicted by a pollster who relies on the biased media.
The prediction on Zimbabwean elections results is an elaborated rigging way being used by the opposition.
This is where they try to condition the people's minds into believing that Chamisa will win elections.
This is done in such a way that a narrative of a victorious opposition is spread to make it easy to refuse to accept the results.
This is the trick employed by the opposition to promote chaos among the people.
Opinion polls help politicians understand what the public wants, and the public understands who is popular at the ballot box.
But it is clear that predictions of the 2023 harmonised elections are widely off the mark. Zimbabweans have begun to question their relevance.
In the lead up to an election, political pundits and interested members of the public will never refer to opinion polls to see how results may come out. This is because the polls are biased towards the West opinion and will never serve the interest of the Zimbabweans.
But while polls have been viewed as a reliable guide, recent failures in the predictions of general elections worldwide have been viewed as being potentially damaging for the nations.
Opinion polls, are a survey of public opinion from a particular sample group, and as such can be useful in informing politicians about the views of specific people.
In practice, pollsters need to balance the cost of polling a large sample against the reduction in sampling error.
The polls relied upon by the Sabi Strategy cannot be relied on as it is biased and time wasting.
Polls survey a variety of issues relating to voters' views on, specific policies to political leaders' approval rates.
It should be known that between elections, "polls act as a feedback mechanism which could affect parties" policy choices, whereas nearer to an election, they are feedback mechanism on how the campaign is going. So the polls by Sabi were a box ticking pathetic exercise meant to feed in an opposition sponsored narrative.
The polls may also be a threat to peace and a destructive divisive action sponsored by the West.
When people vote for the party they think is going to win, this is referred to as the "bandwagon effect".
This is what the CCC is hoping to benefit from the false predictions.
They are hoping to create a legitimate expectation in the electorate which should justify them to reject the expected Zanu PF victory.
Because polling results around voting intentions are often publicised, the information they provide can influence voters' perception of the various parties' likelihood of winning an election, or the chances of being part of a coalition government.
Opinion polls, when done professionally are valuable as they guide policy development by giving decision makers impartial information about what the public wants.
But this requires pollsters to be both transparent and accurate in their statistical methodologies, something that recent surveys have failed to do.
The publishing of that opinion was a mischievous well calculated campaign by the opposition using the opinion polls.
Polls are powerful - they can influence emotions and shape political fortunes. They can be used to drum up support for campaigns and reveal how closely aligned (or far apart) the general public is on consequential.
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Like every election year, the 2023 elections have seen so many people trying to predict the outcome.
At the national level, polls and primary results indeed will send people in some parts of the country wondering how to read surveys.
Rather than conduct a census of every single person to find out where the public stands on an issue or candidate, surveys sample opinions and can distil information that helps us better gauge our world.
At their best, polls can empower the broader public to help influence crucial decisions.
But it is important to recognise the limitations of surveys, in addition to the strengths. The surveys in question have been weaponised to de-campaign Zanu PF.
One can expect a deluge of numbers as the presidential election approaches. Be cautious, though, as other recent vote predictions have been way off the mark.
By the time the country prepares to elect its next president, the news will be awash with numbers.
As a result, some will feel confident they know what the results will be before they have even cast a vote. The question is, should we trust what these polls are telling us. We must not vote based on what a campaign which masquerade as an opinion poll has said.
It is sad that the polling organisations are now playing politics in Zimbabwe. The opinion published was not only wrong, partisan and biased, it was also shameful and mischievous.
Zanu-PF will win the elections because it has invested in people.
