Behind the Sunday Times' divorce poll, the OPM's tacit approval

A Sunday Times survey claiming just 40% of respondents would vote in favour of divorce in a referendum, has been overshadowed by claims that the poll was ‘manufactured’ by tacit approval of the Office of the Prime Minister.

MaltaToday is reliably informed that in supplying pollsters Misco with questions they had to ask respondents, the Sunday Times was propping up Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s position to hold a referendum on divorce.

This was done by working closely with a top OPM official, whereupon the Sunday Times then provided Misco with questions to ask their respondents.

Well-placed sources who spoke to MaltaToday said the polling company felt uncomfortable that its findings were used to “downplay the positions held by Joseph Muscat and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando” in the newspaper.

Misco were directed to ask respondents how they would vote for in a referendum, even though reservations were expressed that the question was flawed: because referenda propose concrete laws for voters to decide whether they should pass or not.

“The problem is simple: people vote in referenda once they know what they are voting for, that is, a piece of legislation… a proper divorce bill,” said MaltaToday journalist James Debono, who has carried out three surveys charting the gradual increase of people in favour of divorce over the past five years.

“In polling people on whether they would ‘vote in favour of divorce in a referendum’, the Sunday Times survey is asking people how they would vote in a referendum with no specific proposition.

“A politically honest question would be to ask them to vote on divorce once government hammers out the legal structure on matters such as children’s custody in divorce settlements, alimony payments, etc,” Debono said.

A fundamental difference in the STOM and MaltaToday surveys is the lead question asked. The Sunday Times asked people how they would vote in a referendum and registered 40% who ‘would vote in favour of divorce’; MaltaToday asked people if they agreed with ‘divorce for couples who have been separated for four years’, and registered 59% in favour – specifically 41% who said ‘yes’ and another 18% who replied they favour divorce “in certain circumstances.”

In fact the proposed bill by Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando recommends that divorce is only granted to people who have been living apart from their partner for at least four of the previous five years – allaying fears of instant ‘Las Vegas-style’ divorce.

“There will always be people who qualify their ‘yes’… we don’t know where these answers featured in the STOM survey,” Debono said. “All surveys conducted so far by MaltaToday and other pollsters have shown that a significant percentage favour divorce only in certain circumstances. It is not clear whether these were lumped with the ‘don't knows’ in the STOM survey.”

But in other respects, the two scientific surveys converge.

For example the STOM polled 55% of respondents who said they are in favour of the decision on divorce to be settled by referendum; MaltaToday found 58% in favour. Those who want the decision taken through a general election were 8.5% (MaltaToday) and 10.6% (STOM) – but those who want MPs to vote are 12.3% (MaltaToday) and 20.2% (STOM), however MaltaToday was also told by 14.5% that no decision was necessary at all – divorce should just not be introduced.