84.6% wouldn’t vote for Musa, says national University of Belize poll
Posted: 22/03/2007 - 09:53 PM
Author: Adele Ramos
A new election poll released from the University of Belize, Office of the Registrar, reveals some controversial results. While it suggests that the Prime Minister’s approval rating has slipped about a percentage point, it seems to indicate, on its surface, that the popularity of the two traditional parties, the ruling People’s United Party (PUP) and the Opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), has substantially increased in both cases when compared with a similar poll released last October. But has it?
This new poll, released Tuesday, March 20, was a collaborative effort of UB and St. John’s College Junior College’s Belizean Studies Resource Center—the same center that collaborated with SPEAR on two previous polls to assess the public’s political preferences.
According to a release issued by UB on Tuesday, students who did the legwork for the poll interviewed 430 Belizeans from all six districts via phone, and their margin of error is plus or minus five percent. The poll was conducted over the weekend, coinciding with the start of the village council elections.
The poll results presented to the media are centered on the question: whom would you vote for as the next Prime Minister, and the leaders of all the declared political parties, numbering six, were listed. Respondents were asked for yes/no responses to each choice, meaning that they could have said yes to more than one leader.
Pollsters also questioned people on their party preferences, and specifically which party they want to form the next government. Again, pollsters were asked to give a simple yes or no answer, meaning that they could say yes to more than one party.
The results say that Dean Barrow, Opposition UDP Leader, got the highest percentage of yes votes (55.7% yes and 44.1% no), followed by Prime Minister Said Musa (14.9% yes and 84.6% no). The results also say that among those polled, the most popular third party leader is Cornelius Dueck of the National Reform Party, and the third party leader with the lowest national percentage is Wil Maheia, who leads the People’s National Party.
But on the flip side, Maheia’s popularity is a high 45% in Toledo, his place of origin and residence, and he is second only to Opposition Leader Barrow, who picked up the poll’s highest approval rating of 62.5% among Toledo respondents.
In fact, leaders of the third parties—even the northern-based We The People Reform Movement—seem to enjoy their greatest popularity in the South, and WTP leader, Hipolito Bautista, got more yes votes in Toledo than his own place of residence, Corozal.
The poll records that the PUP’s popularity is as low as the Prime Minister’s, at 15.1%, and all parties seem to do only as well as their leaders did in the poll.
But is it realistic to ask people whom they will vote for as the next prime minister when in reality, the public cannot cast such a vote? One of the spokespersons who led the research told us today that this is why they asked the question whom people “would” rather than “will” vote for as prime minister. They claim it is a valid question to ask since they want to look at the issue of leadership.
We note that in the last poll, people were, instead, asked if they approved of the way the Prime Minister is running the country. And only 15.1% said yes. The difference with this poll is that it asked people whether or not they would actually vote for Said Musa as prime minister. In this case, 14.9% said yes. While this question was asked of people around the country, the only people legally entitled to vote for Musa are his own constituents in Fort George, and he must get their endorsement before he can even wear that hat again.
There is another major difference between this new poll and the previous one. There were more response categories in the last poll, and the responses were not broken down into simple yes or no answers.
The remarkable difference this has on the results can be seen when voting inclination is broken down by district, indicating how many people would vote for which party. In the last poll, there were several response categories: PUP, UDP, 3rd Party, Undecided, None and Confidential. In the new poll, there were only “Yes” and “No” categories. This, consequently, limits the manner in which we can compare these two polls with each other.
Without the benefit of this understanding, we may look at the 25% approval rating for the PUP in Corozal and say that it is a big improvement over the 16% registered in the last poll. The data tables would give you the impression that the popularity of both the PUP and the UDP have increased nationally in the last five months, since in all but one instance, their approval ratings by district are higher in the new poll.
We observed that in the 2006 poll, responses tagged “undecided” were substantial, ranging from 2.4% in Stann Creek to 23.4% in the Belize District. There were also substantial responses in the “none” category, as high as 20% in Corozal. There are, evidently, some intricacies that this new poll has not brought out.
Amandala attempted today to speak with UB’s registrar, Dr. Roy Young, who led the research for UB, but we were told that he would be in an important meeting. We left a message for him this morning and at the time of this writing, Wednesday evening, our call had not been returned.
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