Published on October 18, 2005

Moves to regulate pollsters working for state institutions have sparked controversy and fears over limits on opinion polls

Thai Rak Thai MPs are preparing an amendment to the Statistics Act. The new legislation will replace statistics laws passed in 1965. The big difference between the two acts is control of public opinion polls.

The principle of the proposed new act is “to control the quality of surveys conducted by pollsters”.

It seeks to make the National Statistical Office (NSO) ultimately responsible for “standards” by allowing it to study proposed polls. The NSO would also address ways in which public surveys are collected, once the new law was implemented.

That’s not all. One of the proposed duties of the NSO is that office be “authorised to get involved in other operations, as stated by law and as assigned by the Cabinet”.

Will this authorisation allow political interference by the government in opinion polls?

The proposed bill also says that pollsters must submit their proposals five days before conducting any surveys.

The flexibility of the proposal has stirred the question: Will the act propose limits or controls on the people’s constitutional rights and liberty, including the right to express opinions through speech, writing, printing, advertising and other means of communication?

Opposition Democrat Party spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon said the proposal was deemed to an urgent agenda item when it was first drafted two years ago. He questions why it has arisen now, when the government’s popularity seems to be in decline.

Opinion polls indicate people’s feelings about issues of current interest. Topics change after the people give a quick response to each matter. A five-day delay could make some surveys useless.

Many research institutes are famous for their opinion polls. Some institutions conduct surveys during election periods. Some survey the government’s and political parties’ popularity regularly. During censure debates, or after a Cabinet reshuffle, the famous Abac Poll and Bangkok Poll rarely miss the chance to report what people think.

The Suan Dusit Poll, meanwhile, provides a monthly “index of Thai political confidence”. Last month its overall index dropped a little. However, the results in July and August showed increases from earlier months.

After a week of criticism, Watana Sengpairoh, spokesman for the government whip, said the proposal only requires government pollsters to submit the survey methodology prior to polls being conducted – and only on security, social and economic issues.

But he declined to give more details about the definition of the terms.

Government chief whip Pongthep Thepkanchana said the proposal hasn’t been considered by the House and can thus still be changed.

But people are already wondering about the impact of such a bill, especially the sort of difference it could mean in the standard of surveys conducted by government institutions and those done by private research institutes.

These research institutes mostly belong to academic institutions. They must conduct surveys with a standard methodology, as they might risk losing their organisation’s reputation if below-standard poll results are released.

The new laws may be put to the House this week, but government MPs still have some time to reconsider the details.

They should consider carefully and make sure that the bill doesn’t give more power to the government and put more limits on freedom of expression than the act issued by Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn’s administration 40 years ago.

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poldesk@nationgroup.com.

Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation

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