ULP paid for poll conducted by CADRES – Dr Gonsalves

The recent poll conducted by regional pollsters CADRES was commissioned and paid for by the Unity Labour Party (ULP).{{more}}

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT yesterday, political leader of the ULP Dr Ralph Gonsalves said his party has done several polls over the years.

“We have always been doing polls, we do them at intervals. We have made some of them public before, and not made others. We are halfway through our third term. I wanted … a measure of public opinion in relation to what we were doing, certainly of course, the issue of marijuana,” he said.

“It is a sensible thing for people to do polls, and indeed focus groups,” Gonsalves said.

When asked who paid for the poll, the political leader said “We paid for the poll, as we have paid for all polls done by Peter Wickham.”

Political scientist Peter Wickham, a Barbadian, leads the CADRES (Caribbean Development Research Services) team.

“When we doing any of our political polls through Peter Wickham, the ULP pays. And it is not now that we are doing polls. Since the unified ULP, we have been doing polls. I did polls halfway between ‘94 and ‘98, we did polls in 98, we did polls in 2000, we did between 2000 and 2005, we do polls all the time.

“The last poll we did was early November 2010,” Gonsalves said.

“We did a poll in January 2010. I wanted to … get a sense as to who didn’t vote in the referendum, who voted, I wanted also to see the standing of the party despite the referendum victory by the ‘No’ people, and I got the information.

“We do party standings, sometimes; we even do constituency polls,” he said.

Leader of the Opposition and president of the New Democratic Party Arnhim Eustace had questioned who paid for the poll during his weekly radio appearance on the New Times programme on Nice Radio.