MaltaToday Survey | Trust in Abela grows despite FATF greylisting

Robert Abela’s trust rating has increased for the fourth month in a row and now stands at 51.6% in July’s MaltaToday survey.

The Prime Minister’s trust rating is up by 1.2 points since last month, despite Malta’s greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force.

Bernard Grech also sees his trust rating increase by 1.1 points to reach 30.4% but the gap between the leaders remains relatively static at 21 points.

Abela had reached his lowest point in March when the COVID infections ballooned, forcing government to introduce tough restrictions. Since then, the government’s successful handling of the pandemic and Abela’s reassuring attitude contributed to trust rating increases month on month.

The survey was carried out in the week after Malta was greylisted by FATF but the numbers suggest this has had little or no impact on Abela and the government.

On the opposite end, Grech’s trust rating continues to fluctuate, never going beyond his highest point in April when he scored 35.8%. This is the second month in a row that Grech’s trust rating has increased since reaching his lowest ebb in May.

The July survey shows Abela trumping Grech comfortably across all age groups. The Prime Minister’s highest rating is in the 51-65 age group where he scores 55.8%, while the Opposition leader’s strongest performance is among those aged 65 and over with 36.3%.

In the youngest age group (16-35), Abela enjoys a trust rating of 46.2%, 19 points more than Grech.

Abela has the upper hand in all regions except the Northern region, where Grech’s trust rating of 39.2% is 1.5 points higher than Abela’s.

In Gozo, Abela retains the lead with a trust rating of 44.5% but the region also has the highest number of people, who are unsure (11.2%).

The Prime Minister enjoys extremely strong ratings across the south and south-east. In the South-Eastern region, Abela has a trust rating of 67.1%, while in the Southern Harbour region he hits the 71.1% mark.

Both regions are traditionally Labour leaning, leaving Grech with dismal showings – the Nationalist Party leader scores 19.9% in the South-Eastern region and 17.2% in the Southern Harbour.

Abela beats Grech among men and women. The Labour leader enjoys a trust rating of 48.3% among women as opposed to Grech’s 29.7%. Among men, Abela’s trust soars to 54.4% against the PN leader’s 31.1%.

The results for these sub groups have to be interpreted with caution because margins of error are higher.

Methodology

The survey was carried out between Monday 28 June 2021 and Tuesday 6 July 2021. 651 respondents opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, age and gender was used to replicate the Maltese demographic. The estimated margin of error is 4.9% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.