Holness claws back as Golding loses ground in leadership duel

Jamaicans have marked Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding as average or above in the stewardship of their respective portfolios.

Sixty per cent of respondents in the RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson public opinion poll rated Holness’ performance in office as very good, good or average, while 40 per cent gave him a negative grade.

A breakdown of the findings of the survey – conducted between January 30 and February 12 among 1,201 registered voters, aged 18 years and over from across all parishes – shows that 14 per cent of Jamaicans believe the prime minister is doing a very good job. Nineteen per cent said he is doing a good job, and 27 per cent noted that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader’s performance is average.

In the survey, which has a margin of error of ±3 per cent, 20 per cent said he is doing a very poor job and, equally, 20 per cent said Holness, who has been in office for nine years, is poor in his performance.

For Golding, who has been leading the parliamentary Opposition and the People’s National Party (PNP) for just over four years, 61 per cent of Jamaicans believe that his performance is very good, good, or average. On the contrary, 39 per cent have given him the thumbs down.

A pullout of the findings shows that 11 per cent believe Golding’s performance is very good, 12 per cent said good, and 38 per cent said average. At the same time, 19 per cent believe his performance is very poor, while 20 per cent think it’s poor.

The ratings of both leaders come as the PNP holds a slight lead over the JLP in party standings, with 35.4 per cent of respondents indicating that they would vote for the opposition party if a general election were called right now, compared to the 30.7 per cent who would vote for the JLP.

Those uncommitted totals 33.9 per cent of respondents.

The findings reflect a 4.4-percentage point decline in the lead the PNP had in September 2024.

Anderson, whose Market Research Services Limited team conducted the survey, has put a different interpretation on the findings of the leaders’ performance.

According to Anderson, both leaders, Holness and Golding have recorded net negative ratings, where more persons regarded their performance as negative (either poor or very poor) than positive (good or very good).

“In this survey, 40 per cent rated Holness’ performance as leader as negative, with 33 per cent rating his performance as positive for a net negative of seven percentage points,” said Anderson.

Holness’ performance

Looked at from across the demographic groups of age and gender, Anderson said there were only two categories that were outliers as far as Holness’ negative ratings were concerned.

He said more women than men gave him a negative rating with persons in the 45-54 age group recording the highest negative.

Among those who rated Holness’ performance as positive, the numbers were equal for both women and men. However, from an age perspective, Anderson said older voters rated him highest, with 41 per cent of those in the 65+ group rating him positive (norm of 30 per cent), as well as persons in the 55-64 age group.

“This is to be noted as this is where the PNP normally gets its best support from,” Anderson said.

Golding, he said, recorded the same overall negative of 40 per cent for his performance as Holness, but his positive rating was 22 per cent, giving him a net negative rating of 18 percentage points.

Those rating his performance as negative, Anderson noted, were generally younger people in the 25-34 and those 35-44 age groups.

He said all other age cohorts were below the norm of 40 per cent.

The veteran pollster said of the 22 per cent who gave Golding a positive rating, these were mainly persons in the 55-64 age group, averaging 25 per cent, and from a gender perspective, both women and men.

“The results from this poll reflect a reversal of the pattern from the September 2024 poll, where Golding recorded a higher positive rating than Holness as well as a net positive rating of eight percentage points against Holness’ net negative of 14 percentage points.

The overall assessment is that Holness gained five percentage points over the period, while Golding lost 10 percentage points.

“Golding’s positive ratings then, in September, came against the background of the strong performance of the party in the local government elections in February, momentum which continued through the April poll and was at its peak immediately after the September poll conducted after the PNP’s annual conference,” said Anderson.

“Holness’ gains, on the other hand, have come after a raft of sweeping initiatives late in 2024 and continuing into 2025, which suggest that the party is now very much in election mode,” he added.

COMPETITIVE

However, Dr Christopher Charles, a professor of political and social psychology at The University of the West Indies, Mona, has assessed that there is a marginal lead of one percentage point for Golding as the challenger, which means that he is competitive in an election year.

“Once the prime minister starts to lose popularity, or is less popular than the opposition near the election, it tends to get worse for the prime minister,” said Charles.

He emphasised that there are three important reasons that factor into the close performance ratings of the leaders – the economy, crime and corruption.

Charles asserted that Jamaicans accept the governing JLP’s basic argument of the record low unemployment rate, but said the PNP has countered that it is that side that started the economic recovery that the JLP inherited in 2016. Also, he said the PNP has been arguing consistently that the jobs added are low-skilled jobs without decent wages, so people’s lives have not generally improved, and similarly, that prosperity is a slogan not an experience for the people.

Another reason the ratings are close, Charles said, is because “the Government has been using the killing of gangsters in the election year as an election strategy. The Government knows that the people like tough and harsh policing in response to crime”.

As at February 22, the Jamaica Constabulary Force recorded an 18.6 per cent decline in serious crimes. Up to that time, Jamaica had recorded a 27 per cent decline in murders year on year, a 19 per cent decline in shootings, a 73 per cent decline in rape, a one per cent decline in robbery, and a 10 per cent increase in break-ins.

But Charles said the Opposition has been arguing that killing gangsters in an election year is good, but not good enough because the homicide rate is still too high, and the Government has failed to create a comprehensive crime policy over the five years to tackle the economic and social conditions in the country that create criminals to significantly reduce the crime rate.

Further, Charles said poll findings about corruption have been widely misinterpreted.

“Some 57 per cent of the respondents stated that they have no opinion about the Integrity Commission. Subtracting 57 per cent from 100 per cent leaves 43 per cent comprising the positions of the minority.

“You cannot extrapolate that because 57 per cent did not state an opinion it means corruption is unimportant to the people. This flawed reasoning is buttressed by the fact that only 20 per cent of the respondents, a minority of the remaining 43 per cent, stated that they held a negative view of the Integrity Commission.”

He asserted that corruption is important to the people and is the third reason the ratings of the two leaders are close.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com