A year ago and throughout the primaries in the United States, Donald Trump was laughed at. When it became evident he would succeed to be the Republican nominee, very few gave him a chance of ever setting foot in the Oval Office. As the November election approached, polls were suggesting he was catching up but was still given a meagre 15 per cent chance of coming out victorious.
This time last year too, Nigel Farage, then leader of the UKIP and a vociferous critic of the European Union, was not being taken seriously when he spoke about the possibility that Britain would vote to leave the EU in the June referendum. The last polls before polling day were suggesting a win for the Remain side despite a strong recovery by the Leave side. What happened next is history.
In Malta, almost two years ago, opinion polls were suggesting that the spring hunting referendum was going to be won by the No camp. As we all know that did not happen.
Where am I going with my argument, you may ask. Are polls becoming irrelevant? Why did they fail in all three instances? Should we disregard the results of polls?
The answer is no. All I am saying is that the world of political surveys is experiencing a new phenomenon.
Opinion polls are generally carried out scientifically by professionals and I will never doubt their validity. Generally, surveys are presented in a quantitative form but lack the qualitative data which, following recent events, is becoming more relevant. The context in which a survey is conducted may be crucial for analysts to read and correctly interpret the patterns emerging from the same data.
In the three instances I mentioned above there was one underlying factor which may have been overseen by analysts. The media in the US and in Britain (except the tabloids) gave Trump and Farage a run for their money. Yet, they both beat all odds and clinched victory. An astonishing parallel could be drawn here in Malta with the media clearly supporting (yet failingly) the ban on spring hunting. Times are changing for the fourth estate.
The polls were right, it was only those who interpreted the results who were wrong
In each case, polls appear to have got it wrong too. I do not concur with this premise. I strongly believe that the polls were right. It was only those who interpreted the results who were wrong.
The survey numbers that make the headlines should be looked at within a context. Polls indicate a trend and the raw numbers need to be presented with qualitative data. This brings me to the present local scene; which is how to interpret the survey results about the leaders’ trust ratings and the voting intentions of Maltese respondents.
If one looks at the local surveys conducted over the past 12 months and their respective interpretation by the media houses, one would be made to believe that the Labour Party and Joseph Muscat still hold a sizeable lead over the Nationalist Party and Simon Busuttil respectively. My interpretation is different and the US’s and Britain’s experiences, following Malta’s spring hunting referendum, makes me more resolute.
A number of Maltese respondents are being careful with their replies. Let me highlight a particular example, which emerged in the latest isurvey published by The Malta Independent. According to that poll, an overwhelming majority of the Maltese believe that the government is corrupt and, yet, the same survey puts Labour and Muscat ahead.
For those not familiar with surveys this detail may not raise any interpretational issues. For those, like myself, however, this is an important detail and I would have to analyse further to establish how many respondents in the survey chose not to divulge their voting intentions despite expressing an opinion on the government’s and Muscat’s performance.
The more the local media says Labour leads, despite the corruption and scandals that have engulfed the government, the more respondents feel uncomfortable about expressing their voting intentions even though they are disgusted with the level of sleaze, corruption and scandals we have now got accustomed to.
Divulging their correct voting intentions would make them look like they are going against the majority of society.
I have seen this with my own eyes in other surveys. While most respondents are happy to answer questions of a political nature, a number of them are not willing to tell the interviewer who they will vote for in an election. The most common answer would be ‘I don’t know’. The percentage of ‘don’t knows’ in voting intentions are, in most cases, much higher than for any other question. As a result, numbers that make the headlines are somehow distorted.
Eventual PN voters are less likely to divulge their voting intentions than their Labour counterparts as they would appear to be in minority. This does not mean that in the general election they will abstain. Like in the US, with Trump and the Leave camp in Britain, Maltese voters are observing the performance of the government and the Prime Minister. They are making up their mind only to express it at the ballot box. That is, after all, the survey that matters.
Hermann Schiavone is a PN candidate and political analyst.