Joy predicts AL’s landslide victory in Dhaka city polls

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina's son, also her ICT affairs adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy has predicted a landslide victory for ruling Awami League in the Dhaka north and south city corporation elections scheduled to be held on 1 February.

Joy predicted the victory quoting an opinion poll, reports news agency BSS.

The polling was conducted by a mock ballot, so that neither the enumerator nor we know who voted for whom, he wrote in a post shared on his verified Facebook page on Thursday.

He also said they have found this to be the most accurate method of polling. "People are not afraid to select any candidate. Those who still don’t choose are the ones unlikely to vote since no election has 100% turnout. The margin of error is +/-3%."

Referring to the opinion poll, Joy said the ruling party’s candidate in the North, Atiqul Islam, is expected to get the mandate of 50.7 per cent voters. His rival the BNP’s Tabith Awal is forecast to draw only 17.4 per cent of the votes.

In the South, Awami League candidate Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh is predicted to bag 54.3 per cent votes. The BNP candidate, Ishraque Hossain, may get 18.7 per cent votes, according to the opinion poll.

"It is simply not possible for any campaign to swing the vote more than 10%, especially in a month. In either case, these elections will not just be a landslide for the Awami League. They will be a walkover," Joy wrote.

He said they polled 1,301 people in the DNCC and 1,245 people in the DSCC.

People were selected through random sampling from the voters list and then polled in person, according to him.

Joy further said the opinion poll was conducted when the candidates were first announced so the actual results will vary a little.