Eugene Hoogstad
PHILIPSBURG--Some 83 per cent of those who voted for Party for Progress (PFP) in January said they will vote for the party again in the upcoming snap election, the highest percentage in the recent poll by independent researcher and consultant Eugene Hoogstad.
The Democratic Party (DP) is the second highest in the poll’s results at 71%, while National Alliance (NA) came in third at 68%.
Unified Resilient St. Maarten Movement (URSM) was estimated to retain 53% of their voters, based on the sample, while Nation Opportunity Wealth (NOW) came in at 44%.
United People’s (UP) Party was the last among the bunch, with only 33% of respondents who voted for the party in January saying they would vote the same way on Monday.
However, the poll could not estimate a retention figure for Empire Culture Empowerment (ECE), the party of lone candidate Nigel Wigley, because too few had chosen the party to draw reliable conclusions.
Additionally, there could be no results for new parties Soualiga Action Movement (SAM) and Oualichi Movement for Change (OMC) because they had not contested the election earlier this year.
The poll also asked the 602 respondents to indicate their preferred candidate on the party they intend to vote for on Monday.
Of those who intend to vote for SAM, some 55% said they would cast a ballot for party leader Franklin Meyers.
NA’s front-runner was Member of Parliament (MP) and former Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Egbert Doran, with more than 45%.
For DP voters, the two leading the pack were party leader and Parliament Chairwoman Sarah Wescot-Williams with more than 30%, and caretaker Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) Grisha Heyliger-Marten coming in at just shy of 30%.
Olivier Arrindell was the clear favourite among OMC’s voters, garnering 79% of respondents.
NOW had two in the lead, party leader Christophe Emmanuel and former MP Claudius “Toontje” Buncamper, both of whom had a little of 25% of the voter share.
UP’s front-runner is party leader Omar Ottley at 36%, followed by former leader Rolando Brison at 18%.
PFP’s voters preferred MP Ludmila de Weever the most (34%), with party leader Melissa Gumbs being the choice of 23%.
Caretaker Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina was the clear favourite of URSM’s voters, with 68% of respondents who said they would vote for URSM saying they would circle his name on their ballots.
Hoogstad said the poll mainly focused on differences within parties, which are less impacted by misrepresentation of the sample, and general findings among voters.
Respondents scored an average of 4.2 out of five when asked if they believed the political party they intended to vote for will do everything in its power to deliver on its promises.
The results should be taken as estimates, with a margin of error, and not as predictions, Hoogstad told this newspaper.
“We identified some bias in our sample, due to slight over- and under- representation of some groups. We calculated scaling factors to correct for these,” he said. “Ideally, we apply a method where everyone in the voting population has an equal chance of ending up in the sample. However, due to time and resource constraints, we opted to announce our poll in ‘The Daily Herald’ and rely on snowball sampling, where people forward the message to others. 65% of respondents reported to be informed about the poll via WhatsApp, which likely impacted the distribution of our sample.”
The poll was conducted between July 30 and August 3, and the detailed results, said Hoogstad, can be viewed at www.livae.sx.
