Unsatisfied Maltese

With just one week before Local Government elections, it's bad news for the governing Nationalist party. A survey conducted for the Sunday Times and published today concludes that 75% of the Maltese are unsatisfied with the way Government is running the country. It also states that dissatisfaction runs high among all ages and socio-economic groups. From the Sunday Times:

The fact that the reading is negative is very alarming; the fact that it is so negative suggests that the performance of the current administration is performing well below the expectations of the electorate. Asked whether Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's style of government was serving the country well, a mere 0.3% of respondents declared that "he is doing extremely well"; another 17% stated that "he is doing well enough"; and 17.3% of the respondents are "in two minds about how he is doing". However, the majority of the respondents (54.7%) clearly stated that "he is doing badly" and 5.7% consider Dr Gonzi as "doing very badly". Worked out on a 100-Point Performance Index, this gives a negative -23 points..

Strikingly, none of the three political parties obtained an absolute majority in terms of voting intentions if elections had to be held today. Of the three political parties, 38% of the respondents said that they would vote for the Malta Labour Party (MLP), 17% for the Nationalist Party (PN) and 2.3% for the Alternattiva Demokratika (AD). As many as 28% did not wish to commit themselves either way, while yet another 14.7% stated that they would not vote if a general election were to be held today.


An interview I gave to the Malta Independent on Sunday is published today here. The subjects discussed include the European Constitution and Maltese public perceptions on the European Union and National institutions.