| 38% say alliance of minor parties won't have impact on elections Observer/Stone Poll: |
| Observer Reporter Tuesday, September 03, 2002 |
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| Leaders of the New Jamaica Alliance (from left) Rev Al Miller of the Jamaica Alliance for National Unity, Hyacinth Bennett of the National Democratic Movement and Denzil Taylor of the Republican Party, at the launch of the alliance in July. |
ONLY eight per cent of Jamaicans believe that the recent alliance of three minor political parties will have a significant impact on the upcoming general election, a poll done for the Observer has showed.
However, another third says that the group will have a "small impact" on the outcome of the vote, and therefore, who forms the next government.
The major contenders in the election are the incumbents, the People's National Party (PNP) and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party.
The New Jamaica Alliance was created in July as an umbrella under which the National Democratic Movement (NDM), the Al Miller-led and church-based Jamaica Alliance for National Unity (JANU) and the Republican Party will fight the election. However, Antonnette Haughton-Cardenas' United People's Party (UPP) opted out of the alliance.
In an August 17 and 18 survey, Stone asked people how they thought the emergence of the alliance will affect the elections.
A mere 7.8 per cent said that the group would have a significant impact, and 3.8 per cent said they would have a small impact.
However, 38 per cent said that the group would have no impact whatsoever and 20.5 per cent did not know.
This poll, for which Stone used a sample of 1,202 persons, aged 18 and over, has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.
In the 1997 general election, won by the PNP, the NDM got approximately five per cent of the popular vote, but did not win a seat in the legislature. Since then, its support has been in free fall, exacerbated by the departure from its leadership of founding president Bruce Golding.
The NAJ, on the face of it, is an ill-defined group in which the NDM and other organisations have maintained their separate identities and are at liberty to put up their own candidates for the election.
Question:
A political alliance has been formed between JANU, the NDM and the Republican Party in preparation for the upcoming elections. Do you believe this alliance will have significant impact on the elections, small impact or no impact?
Answers:
Significant impact..................7.8%
Small impact............................33.7%
No impact................................38.0%
Don't know...............................20.5%
...................................................100%