BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, February 20, 2019 (Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister) – The Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, used Monday’s (February 18) town hall meeting in Nevis to reflect on the positive results of the latest national poll conducted by respected Jamaican pollster, Don Anderson, which indicated that the majority of persons in the country favour the Team Unity administration and its policies and programmes.
The national poll was conducted between November 15 and December 10, 2018 and covered all 11 constituencies in St. Kitts and Nevis. 869 persons aged 18 years and over, who are eligible to vote in national elections, were reportedly questioned by Mr. Anderson and his team from Market Research Services Limited.
An article posted in the Jamaica Observer stated that Mr. Anderson reported that 57 per cent of the persons interviewed are of the view that things have got better in the country over the last three years.
“This is a very strong, positive assessment of the current situation in the country. This far outweighs the 23 per cent who feel that things have got worse over this time. This positive view of the way things are going in the country was echoed across most of the constituencies, including some held by the Opposition,” Mr. Anderson was quoted in the article as saying.
On the performance of the Government itself, Mr. Anderson said more persons rated the Team Unity administration positively than those who rated it negatively. When asked how they would rate the performance of the Dr. Timothy Harris-led Unity Government, 38 per cent viewed this positively, rating it either very good or good, compared to the 30 per cent who rated the performance as being poor or very poor.
“At the same time, another 32 per cent considered the performance as being acceptable, if not in the strongly positive category. In the final analysis, close to 70 per cent of all persons interviewed regard the performance of the Government as being average to excellent,” Mr. Anderson further stated in his report.
Speaking at Monday’s town hall at the St. Paul’s Anglican Church Hall, Prime Minister Harris made particular reference to what he termed as an “interesting finding” of the poll, which stated where persons were asked to indicate what factors conditioned a negative rating of the Government, the largest single mention was ‘I don’t know’, represented by 14 per cent.
In response to this, Dr. Harris said, “They were just told to say that the government’s bad. It has no reference to reality. They couldn’t explain why they didn’t like the government. There was no sensible reason advanced for their particular position in opposition to the government.”
The national survey also found that a significant number of individuals acknowledged that “the Government is making coordinated efforts to tackle crime and violence” in the country and also that the majority of persons interviewed welcomed the deployment of the Regional Security System (RSS), as well as efforts already in place to review the strategic programmes of the National Security Strategy Commission.
The poll also showed that the majority of residents questioned were in favour of the Government’s decision to implement its historic Poverty Alleviation Programme and its move to put mechanisms in place to monitor how these funds are used by recipients.
Furthermore, when asked what are the real accomplishments of the Team Unity Government that helped to shape their positive views, 43 per cent felt that the Government had improved the infrastructure, 23 per cent said that the Government had provided roofing assistance, 14 per cent cited the move to provide affordable housing, and 10 per cent pointed to the introduction of the Poverty Alleviation Programme.
