Parties of the right show “significant increase, almost reaching 50%”
With the country assailed by acrimonious political ‘debates’ every evening, the latest polling shows that voting intentions are swinging to the right.
Indeed, the ‘electoral balance between the left and right’ shows almost 50% of the country (47.4%) saying it is willing to vote for either AD (the ‘democratic alliance’ led by PSD social democrats), CHEGA or Iniciativa Liberal.
Only 33.2% appears to be disposed to vote either PS Socialist, Bloco de Esquerda, CDU (the communist alliance), PAN or LIVRE; and 12.4% say they don’t want to vote for any of the above.
Less than a calendar month from the elections on March 10, the poll – taken between last Tuesday and last Saturday – shows “the tectonic plates of the electorate in search of a stable solution for government have started to move”, considers Carlos Rodrigues, editorial director general of the country’s ‘best read tabloid’ Correio da Manhã.
Correio da Manhã was one of two media outlets that commissioned this latest Intercampus poll (Jornal de Negócios being the other). It puts the AD (the alliance of PSD, CDS-PP and PPM) up 3.5% from the last polling, leading intentions with 24.3% of the vote, and PS Socialists down 4% from the last poll, in second place, with 22.4%.
CHEGA is still the ‘3rd political force’ – reaching 16.5% of people’s voting intentions – but this percentage has barely moved since the last poll (in fact it has ‘slipped’ by 0.1%), showing, suggests the poll, that citizens who have decided to vote for the party have already made their decision.
In the section for ‘possible votes of those who are still undecided’, CHEGA only saw 5.8%, while again the centre-right appears to be scoring well: 16.7% of undecided expressed a preference for the AD coalition, while only 10.9% said they could end up voting Socialist.
According to CM’s text today, that 10.9% is down from 18% in the last poll. So, not a good sign for the party.
What does this tell us regarding the value of these televised debates which regularly descend into unedifying slanging matches in which all kinds of insults are exchanged? The answers may be being carefully considered in the various party headquarters today.
As to the rest of the poll, following CHEGA’s 16.5% of voting intentions, the next party – Iniciativa Liberal (IL) – scored only 6.6%. This is still up on the last polling, and puts IL into 4th place, ahead of Bloco de Esquerda, which has ‘dropped’ 2% since the last poll, emerging with 5.4% of citizens’ voting intentions.
After the Bloco, comes PAN (up 1% with 3.2%); CDU (the communist alliance) losing ground, with now only 2.7% of the vote, and finally LIVRE, with the same percentage, which is actually 1.4% up on the last poll.
Taken as a whole, CM explains that the percentage of people planning to vote for any of the country’s left wing parties has dropped from the last polling’s 39% to the current 33.2%.
Putting centre-right and right together, says the paper, and you will come up with “nearly 50% of the country’s voting intentions”.
In his analysis, Carlos Rodrigues stresses that all of this could change, and none of it really gives a firm result either way. But it does suggest there is a “reviving of the conscience of the mistakes and gaffs of PS governance” – which may have been powered by the heated exchanges and accusations bandied about in televised debates.
Whatever the merit of this latest poll, it also shows the electorate is unimpressed by party leaders. On a scale of 1-5, none reach a 3. Even “organs of sovereignty” are given lacklustre ratings, with only the President of the Republic scoring a 3; the prime minister (who has all but disappeared from public view) dropping to a 2.4; the government to 2.3.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
