SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Vot­ers be­lieve the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is more “out of touch with or­di­nary peo­ple” when com­pared to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

De­spite this, a na­tion­al poll done by H.H.B & As­so­ciates Lim­it­ed showed the UNC was still con­sid­ered by elec­tors to have more “sen­si­ble poli­cies” com­pared to the PNM. But the PNM scored far more points than the UNC in the sur­vey for keep­ing its promis­es to vot­ers.

H.H.B & As­so­ciates Lim­it­ed, whose man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Louis Bertrand is a na­tion­al poll­ster, was con­tract­ed by Guardian Me­dia to do two sur­veys ahead of the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion—the first a na­tion­al poll and the oth­er on the six mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies. (See Ta­ble 11)

Re­spon­dents were ques­tioned on sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing their in­ter­est in the elec­tion, ma­jor is­sues in­flu­enc­ing their votes, whether they felt par­ties were ca­pa­ble of solv­ing prob­lems, the gen­er­al progress of the coun­try and peo­ple, the par­ties’ per­for­mance in run­ning the coun­try, favoura­bil­i­ty rat­ings of key po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, par­ty im­age and vot­ing in­ten­tions.

The first part of the na­tion­al poll start­ed on Sun­day Guardian and showed the PNM was slight­ly ahead of the UNC in the elec­tion race. The sur­vey al­so found that 35 per cent of re­spon­dents sup­port­ed the PNM and 29 per cent UNC. Al­so, 40 per cent of re­spon­dents stat­ed they were not both­ered about who wins next month’s elec­tion, while 30 per cent re­port­ed they were worse off to­day than five years ago.

On Mon­day, the sur­vey found a near sta­tis­ti­cal tie in the rat­ings of PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and UNC head Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in terms of who would make a bet­ter Prime Min­is­ter.

In yes­ter­day’s pa­per, the poll found that dis­en­chant­ment over “poor pub­lic util­i­ties and un­em­ploy­ment” could have a ma­jor in­flu­ence on how vot­ers will sup­port the po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

In ex­am­in­ing the fi­nal part of the na­tion­al poll, re­spon­dents were asked sev­er­al ques­tions on “par­ty im­age.”

On which par­ty “keeps its promis­es,” re­spon­dents gave the PNM a 43 per cent rat­ing to the UNC’s 37 per cent.

On this, Bertrand said, “Again, five years in Op­po­si­tion, the UNC doesn’t have too many promis­es to keep.”

As to which par­ty has been “out of touch with or­di­nary peo­ple,” the UNC re­ceived a rat­ing of 52 per cent to the PNM’s 41.

With re­gards to “un­der­stand­ing prob­lems of T&T,” the UNC was giv­en a slight edge with 58 per cent while the PNM ob­tained 54 per cent.

With a four per cent mar­gin of er­ror, Bertrand said: “That is a tie more or less.”

Re­spond­ing to which po­lit­i­cal par­ty “looks af­ter the in­ter­ests of peo­ple like us,” the UNC re­ceived 43 per cent to the PNM’s 47 per cent. This, Bertrand said was an­oth­er dead heat.

As for which par­ty has sen­si­ble poli­cies, the UNC picked up 54 per cent to the PNM’s 47 per cent.

“So that is a clear pref­er­ence for UNC poli­cies,” Bertrand said.

The poll re­port­ed that “most rat­ings were close (that is) not sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant.”