Bogus Poll Showing PF Lead Discredited

A poll commissioned by the Patriotic Front and purporting to show a lead for President Edgar Lungu over his main rival Hakainde Hichilema has been discredited as a ploy by the PF to influence voters’ decisions.

The poll, which claimed that 61.1% of respondents would vote for President Lungu, was supposedly carried out by a company called Faraline UK. However, Farraline has been defunct since May 2021. The poll’s author, “Professor” Richard Elsen was also found not to hold a professorship and to have no connection to academia.

The plot was uncovered by leading political scientist and professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, Dr Nic Cheeseman. Dr Cheeseman said the polls’ results were “very dubious” and questioned which intuition had awarded “Professor” Elsen his advanced degree. 

In fact, Mr Elsen is the founder of Farraline Public Relations, a London-based PR company specialising in reputation management. He previously worked as a spin doctor for the UK Labour Party. 

The fake opinion poll comes as President Lungu attempts to steady his ship in the wake of a damning report by Amnesty International, accusing his regime of an “increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights”.

Among other things the report highlighted growing media censorship and increased violence directed at opposition supporters and parties as part of a trend of growing authoritarianism in Zambia. It accused President Lungu of attempting to tighten his grip on the country ahead of August’s elections and said the human rights situation had “drastically deteriorated under Lungu’s presidency”.