Lord Ashcroft Reveals Latest National Survey on Politics, Society, and Economy

Lord Michael Ashcroft has been paying to have surveys carried out on several sectors of the country for the past fourteen years.  Today, the press was called to the Tree House to get a deeper analysis on the findings of the survey and polls.  Today’s gathering revealed the compilation of polls in the areas of politics, societal, and economical landscapes. This year’s exercise was carried out by Viking Strategies LLC, with 968 persons surveyed.  The survey sought to assess the country’s current state and to draw long-term perspectives from the Belizean public on the state of their finances and their political views. The data was then compared to key findings of previous surveys to examine how the landscapes have changed over the years. According to the study, Belizeans have remained focused on three main factors: economic issues, crime, and corruption.  It did reveal, however, that they are more comfortable about their financial situation than they ever have despite a constant concern over the cost of living. The data also looked at the popularity of politicians and how people described them. And, similar to last year’s survey, Prime Minster John Briceno and the Leader of the Opposition remained the two most well-known politicians. However, the President of Viking Strategies, Trygve Olson, explained that this time around, participants didn’t have much of a warm feeling towards Barrow as he was one of the most disliked politicians, while their views on Briceno remained the same. 

Trygve Olson, President, Viking Strategies: “The more positive feelings in 2023 were not cemented in. I’m not sure whether these are cemented in. But the longer this goes on, the more those things can become pretty hardcore, and that judgment gets cast. And that’s something that, quite frankly, will have to be figured out. I will tell you that if you want to be the party leader and you can’t unite a party, it becomes very, very hard to win an election. Briceño? Here’s the thing about John. I think people generally, you know, Belizeans, like he has his people who like him. He has his people who don’t like him. He’s liked. Is he loved? I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s liked. He has his detractors who don’t like him at all. But the truth of the matter is, Philip and I were talking about this at lunch. Somebody had asked me this question, so I went and looked it up. You know, Dean Barrow, when Dean Barrow was at his zenith, 45% of Belizeans felt cold negative towards him. And he got re-elected with a really good margin, right? Because in politics, if you’re above 50% of people, 51% of people love you, you’re gonna be in power for a long time, even if 49% hate your guts. Donald Trump kind of proves that, right? I don’t get the sense though that Briceño is like a guy who there’s this intense passion for one way or the other. But he is liked. Shyne is in the odd circumstance where people kind of were hopeful they’d like them. They’d gone on like a first date that didn’t go so great but wasn’t so bad for some of them it went so bad we don’t want another date there are a lot of them who are like ehhh yeah you know.”
 

The survey also looked at the United Democratic Party’s chance of winning the next election and found that the party could give the current government a run for its money if they are able to unite before the next general elections. The poll shows that while the People’s United Party is perceived to have improved infrastructure, health care, and education, its ability to reduce corruption and crime remains under question. Nonetheless, it shows that the PUP may just be able to capture the Albert division which is known as a UDP stronghold.  Olson provided details on this finding as well as from voters in the Belize Rural Central constituency.

Trygve Olson, President, Viking Strategies: “So we asked people, do you think things are better today or were they better in the past? So basically current government or former government, which gives us a UDP, PUP. PUP has a pretty big advantage on health care, infrastructure,  education in relation to the foreign countries. You get two checks on all of them, which is pretty wild. But the UDP has an advantage on the issues that are actually the ones that matter more to voters. But they’re not in a position to capitalize because I would bet you all as the premier elements that Belize is press corp when you go and ask them questions you’re not asking any of them what’s your policy for cost of living and how’s it going to impact people. You’re asking about internal conflict. And as long as they’re marred in talking about themselves, rather than talking about the Belizean people and the current government and the ways that they believe that they’re failing them, they’re going to struggle in the same way that Democrats were with Biden. So PUP’s path to victory, I mean if I had to call this today and so much of it depends on the internal power struggles within the UDP and what the UDP does, but if they remain divided then all bets are off. I mean they could hit their floor if they kind of get their act together and all things are neutral say that UDP solves its problems, PUP runs their campaign. I would say that most likely probably leads to a slightly modest victory for the PUP. But again, campaigns matter. And we all remember it was in 2012 where everybody expected Barrow to win big and the PUP was not united and then Fonseca came along and they came within a couple of seats but then you had Espat and Cordel Hyde who just said, we’re not running again and they lost those two seats, right? Like that internal conflict still matters. But campaigns matter too. Right? Like that campaign they worked and the red team didn’t.”

The survey’s margin of error is 3.21 percent.