More than 45 percent of the Bahamians surveyed in a major Inter-American Development Bank-financed survey said they would vote for a candidate or party different from the current administration if an election were held this week. Another 24.5 percent said they would not vote at all. And 27.2 percent said they would vote for an incumbent candidate or party.
The results are a part of the AmericasBarometer survey, which is the only scientifically rigorous comparative survey that covers 28 nations, including all of North, Central, and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean.
While 45 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for a candidate or party different from the current administration, 9.5 percent viewed the job performance of Prime Minister Perry Christie as "very good" and 37.4 percent as "good". The results show that 9.6 percent viewed Christie's job performance as "very bad". Another 11.3 percent viewed it as "bad". 32.2 percent said Christie's job performance was neither good nor bad, but "fair".
Christie could at least find comfort in these results, which show that 46.9 percent either think he is doing a good or a very good job. But it should be extremely worrying that such a high percentage of people said they would reject the Progressive Liberal Party in an election. The government is clearly losing steam.
The survey is a part of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). Each year it publishes dozens of high quality academic studies and policy-relevant papers. The Bahamas survey was carried out between June 17 and October 7, 2014. The country was part of the AmericasBarometer survey for the first time in 2014.
According to the technical information that accompanies the results, the 2014 survey was conducted by Vanderbilt University with field work being carried out by Public Domain, a local market research and public opinion firm. The project used a national probability sample design of voting-age adults, with a total of 3,429 people involved in face-to-face interviews. The sample size is considered more than respectable for our population size.
The results reveal attitudes toward a wide variety of topics, from politics to the state of the economy to crime and many other areas in between. It provides a barometer on how Bahamians view the functioning of their government, their police force and prospects for an improved society.
Disaffection
The results on future general election vote are not surprising. Anecdotally, there has long been a feeling of disaffection toward the current administration. If 24.5 percent of voters decide not to vote in a future election, this would be significant. It would be the lowest voter turnout in an independent Bahamas. It would largely speak to people's frustrations with the options presented to them for political leadership.
Currently, Prime Minister Perry Christie, Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis and Democratic National Alliance (DNA) Leader Branville McCartney are the options before us. Despite Christie's breadth of experience, the significant party machinery backing Minnis, and McCartney's youthful appeal and message of change, none of these leaders stands out as a clear favorite for a future election.
According to the survey results, 38.5 percent of respondents said they identify with a political party; 61.5 percent said they do not. The results also reveal that 75.2 percent voted in the last general election; 24.8 percent did not. Asked who they voted for in the 2012 general election, 57.3 percent said the PLP; 32.2 percent said the Free National Movement (FNM) and 9.7 percent said the DNA.
The survey results suggest a dramatic shift away from the governing PLP. In the 2012 general election, the PLP secured 48.57 percent of the votes; the FNM got 42.05 percent and the DNA 8.56 percent. Several weeks ago, when we asked Christie whether he felt he and his administration were becoming increasingly unpopular, the prime minister chalked up such perceptions to midterm blues, but he said the economy is improving and that will pay off in a major way for his side.
The AmericasBarometer survey does not reveal what might be contributing to the high level of disaffection toward the current administration, but we suspect it has a lot to do with the many unfulfilled promises that saddle the government. It is likely that it also has to do with this government's poor record on accountability coupled with the scandals and missteps that continue to rock the Christie administration.
As we noted, the survey was conducted between last June and October. Some things have changed since then, although we do not have the numbers to provide an accurate measurement of the temperature of the electorate. Since the survey, value-added tax (VAT) has come on-stream, a measure the prime minister has said will be a great success story.
The government is now preparing to tax Bahamians further to fund National Health Insurance (NHI) which it says (unrealistically so) it will introduce in January 2016. The Christie administration has also received black eyes from the insurance debacle involving the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI). The government will have to dip into the public purse to fund the rebuilding of a dorm destroyed by fire at the site in January.
We have still not yet received a full reporting on the totality of the BAMSI contracts. The government does not seem to have any plan to be accountable in that regard. Christie is also facing a public relations nightmare over his Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources V. Alfred Gray, over an allegation Gray intervened in a judicial matter in his constituency last month. The allegation is the subject of a police investigation.
The government is also challenged to drive down unemployment and to address crime. In the AmericasBarometer survey, respondents were asked what the country's most serious problem is. The results show that 39.4 percent said crime; 10.6 percent said unemployment; 8.9 percent said bad government; eight percent said corruption; 5.3 percent said migration and 4.9 percent said the economy.
Interestingly, 46.6 percent said the economy is worse off than it was 12 months ago; 41.6 percent said it is the same and 11.8 percent said it is doing better. 31.6 percent said their personal economic situation is worse than it was 12 months ago; 51 percent said it is the same and 17.5 percent said it is better.
We would guess that Christie would chalk such perceptions up to his government's poor public relations. He told us recently that poor PR was the lesson of his party's defeat at the polls in 2007, when unemployment was at 7.9 percent.
The prime minister said his administration was again making this mistake.
"...It doesn't make sense to a political organization that wants to perpetuate itself to do good things but have those good things not known by the people," Christie said.
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