The directive forms part of a set of regulations published by the Broadcasting Authority (BA) in anticipation of the June elections. The directives follow a review, carried out by the BA, of similar regulations in other countries.

The BA said that polls are useful tools to inform the public of voting intentions but, it added, they can also be used to manipulate public opinion, especially if they are broadcast in the last days preceding an election. To this effect, results of opinion polls now cannot be broadcast from the Monday before the voting day to the closing of the polling booths.

Producers of programmes broadcasting such surveys will have to hand a copy of the poll’s details to the authority, similar to those that will be announced to

the public.

Producers should never rely on the interpretation given to polls by the organisations that commissioned them, the BA said. Broadcasters should not use words like “prove” or “show” when quoting the results of such surveys. They should say that surveys simply “suggest” trends.

The regulations stipulate various directives for the different types of polls like televoting and phone-in polls, internet polls, vox-pops and exit polls.

Televoting and Internet surveys will have to be identified as such and it should be made clear that such surveys are not statistically sampled and therefore not necessarily representative of the population.

Regarding vox pops the BA says these “do not even indicate what the public is generally saying.” It added that these sort of polls should carry “an announcement that the methodology followed is not

scientific and reliable.”