PNP still popular - Poll says party standings unchanged after 14 months
Published: Sunday | September 6, 2009
Byron Buckley, Special Projects Editor
NEARLY TWO years after it snatched victory in a closely contested general election, the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is trailing the opposition People's National Party (PNP) by six percentage points in popular standing, according to a Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll conducted last month.
The relative party standing remains unchanged since Johnson's survey findings published in June last year. Furthermore, neither party has increased its support among potential voters during the past 14 months.
Johnson found that the JLP and the PNP have each gained only one percentage point on their electability, well within the poll's plus or minus three per cent margin of error.
In no mood for election
Despite its lead in the recent polls, the Portia Simpson-led PNP may have to wait longer before popping champagne bottles, because the electorate is in no mood for a general election at this time. Fifty per cent of the 1,008 persons interviewed by Johnson's polling team during the first two weeks in August did not agree with the suggestion that Prime Minister Bruce Golding should call an early general election. Thirty-nine per cent agreed, while 10 per cent did not offer an opinion.
If, indeed, a general election were called, it would perhaps be a close fight - as in 2007 when the JLP won by a four-seat margin - because respondents see hardly any difference between the parties in several respects. In terms of favourability, the PNP, at 43 per cent, is rated a mere two per cent ahead of the JLP. Similarly, the JLP's higher unfavourability rating of 44 per cent is two points more than the PNP's.
The closeness of the party's standings is further illustrated by the PNP's slim lead (39 per cent) over the JLP (38 per cent) when respondents were asked, 'Which of the two major political parties do you think would do a better job of governing Jamaica at this time?'
"It is as if the 2007 general election is still taking place (in the sense that) there is still a major divide between the JLP and the PNP," pollster Bill Johnson comments. He argues that nothing has happened to convince the vast majority of JLP and PNP supporters that their respective party is not the best to govern the country at this time.
Johnson points to polling data indicating that 80 per cent of those who disclosed that they had voted for the PNP in 2007 said they would vote for the party again; while 71 per cent of those who said they had voted for the JLP indicated that they would do so again.
Notes Johnson: "The reason the PNP is ahead is because 12 per cent of those who voted for the JLP in 2007 said they would not do so if a general election were held now, they would stay home."
Furthermore, the number of uncommitted electors has also remained unchanged, at 33 per cent, since June 2008.
byron.buckley@gleanerjm.com
Analysts say:
More well-to-do Jamaicans are beginning to feel the pinch of the crisis and are showing a better appreciation for the complex web in which the country is caught, and are thus postponing the game of politics in the interest of the country, and are participating in governance to work through the necessary strategies.
While the PNP's lead in the polls is not surprising in light of the current economic crisis facing the country, it would be difficult to engage in any kind of inductive reasoning as to what it represents. From my own paradigm, it would be useful to do a comparative analysis with the results of September 2007 to determine the trend in popular support, that is to say, whether the PNP's gain is at the JLP's loss, or has the PNP gained from the uncommitted. This is important having regard to the emphasis the electorate placed on leadership in the last general election, and the fact that the PNP did have a six per cent lead at the start of the election campaign.
The Government was elected on a weak majority, and, two years into its five-year term, it really is no surprise that it trails the Opposition in popularity ratings. This is very much in line with the regular pattern in democracies. The personal ratings of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, however, have, over the two years, been consistently higher than those of his party and his Government.
The Government's deliberate strategic interventions in critical sectors with wide-reaching impact, e.g., health and education, plus programmes aimed at assisting the poor, e.g. PATH, are having desired social effects in the short run at the expense of economic stability in the long run.
The Opposition in the last 15 or so months has been sidetracked in its mission of being her Majesty's loyal Opposition and is becoming irrelevant, even though Mrs Simpson Miller still enjoys support at the grass-roots level.
