PNP ‘not alarmed’ at poll showing

General secretary of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), Dr Dayton Campbell, has declared that poll numbers showing the party well behind the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will change once its election machinery is launched.

“We are not yet at that point where we are launching out into a campaign, and that is why we are not alarmed at the findings,” Campbell said at a Gleaner Editors’ Forum on Wednesday.

An RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson poll revealed that the PNP is trailing the Andrew Holness-led JLP by 13 percentage points amid an increase in voter apathy.

The poll, conducted between July 16 and 25 with a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent, found that 31 per cent of electors would mark their ballot for the JLP, while 18 per cent said they would vote for the PNP.

A total of 34 per cent said that they would not be voting, up from the 31 per cent who said that they would abstain in 2021.

Campbell said the poll data have been analysed by the party and that it was expected that after the 49-14 shellacking in the September 2020 general election - and three leadership challenges in the last 10 years - it would have work to do.

He said that the leadership opted to address the root causes of the problems, which continue to be a millstone around the party’s neck.

The general secretary said that the issues that emerged from the leadership contests needed to be addressed as well as concerns that it is yet to present its philosophy to the electorate.

“So it was important for us to put a team in place that is going to look at the ideology of the party and how you communicate that in 21st-century language so that persons can identify with who we are and know what we want to do for the development of the country,” said Campbell.

The poll showed that the PNP’s strongest support is among older people aged 45 to 55, who accounted for 25 per cent. But even in that category, the party trails the JLP by four percentage points.

Additionally, among voters older than 55, the JLP leads the PNP 29 per cent to 24 per cent.

“All of it comes down to the same thing: that you need to address the issues that persons are having. Then you need to move as a team to indicate to these persons how it is that a future PNP government will make life better for them.

“So we are taking it not just looking at an isolated, one age group, but we are looking at the entire picture as to how it is that we communicate to these different age groups. So 18-25 needs to understand what it is that a Mark Golding-led PNP will do for them. This is what Jamaica will look like, and the same thing for 25-35, 35-45, 45 and over … ,” he said.

At the same time, Golding described the results of the poll on the performance of spokespersons as “confounding”.

The opposition leader said that the responses had little to do with the performance of his shadow ministers but more about who high-visibility profiles and likeability.

Peter Bunting, in his role as opposition spokesman on national security, was voted the worst-performing shadow minister. Outgoing Lisa Hanna, the spokesperson on foreign affairs, was voted the best performer.