Holness, Golding continue to lose favour with Jamaicans

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding

Don Anderson, pollster and head of Market Research Limited

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding continue to lose favour with the Jamaican public. 

According to the latest RJRGLEANER Don Anderson polls, the majority of Jamaicans believe the leaders’ performances are either average or poor to very poor.

Between August 30 and September 14, pollster Don Anderson interviewed 1,010 Jamaicans islandwide about the performance of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding.

Thirty-seven per cent of respondents gave the Prime Minister an average rating.

Nineteen per cent said Mr. Holness’s performance is very poor, while 15 per cent said poor – a combined 34 per cent negative rating.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister received a positive rating of 29 per cent, with 19 per cent giving him a good rating, while 10 per cent said his performance was very good.

Mr. Holness’s overall favourability has declined when compared to 2022.

At that time, 13 per cent of persons interviewed in the RJRGLEANER Don Anderson polls said the Prime Minister’s performance was very good and 25 per cent believed it was good – a positive rating of 38 per cent.

Golding

With regards to Opposition Leader Mark Golding, 39 per cent of respondents gave him an average performance score, compared with 37 per cent for Mr.  Holness.

But he fared worse than the Prime Minister in both positive as well as negative ratings.

Twenty-six per cent of respondents said his performance was poor, while 21 per cent rated it as very poor – a 47 per cent negative rating.

Ten per cent gave him a good rating and four per cent said his performance was very good, an overall positive score of 14 per cent. 

This is a decline from the 18 per cent positive perception Mr. Golding received in 2022, when seven per cent of respondents at that time thought his performance was very good.

Mr. Golding’s poor rating as Opposition Leader also increased by an overall eight per cent compared with last year’s poll findings.

Shift in voter practices?

Pollster and head of Market Research Limited Don Anderson said the significant negative deficit for both party leaders indicates a possible shift in voter practices.

Both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader share a negative public perception based on the poll numbers.

“The conclusion from that is that the voters are moving away from a solid leader-centric focus, where the leader tends to dictate how the vote in pattern is likely to go. They are moving away from that and perhaps therefore going more to an issue focus rather than leader-centric, and that is what we conclude from the fact that despite the fact that the leaders are being negatively perceived, people are still intending to vote one way or another for the respective political parties,” he reasoned. 

Mr. Anderson said the JLP and PNP should be concerned about the trend of negative performance scores especially after the positive heights reached by past leaders.

He noted that former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller was perhaps the last leader from the PNP to enjoy high favourability.

For Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the pollster pointed to a continued fall-off in his performance rating, with the leader coming from a high of over 40 per cent positive rating in previous years to the current 29 per cent for 2023.

Mr. Anderson noted that the consecutive average rating for the Opposition Leader indicates a level of uncertainty towards Mr. Golding’s leadership.

But he said this presents an opportunity for the PNP to increase the party and leader’s favourability.

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