Photo courtesy of Daily Mirror
In April polling for IHP’s Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) MRP tracking of Presidential Election voting intent, support among likely voters for A.K. Dissanayake, NPP/JVP leader, slipped to 45% but was still ahead of Sajith Premadasa, SJB leader on 37%. The decline in support for A.K. Dissanayake largely benefitted President Ranil Wickremesinghe who gained 3 points to 13% and the generic SLPP candidate who gained 1 point to 6%. Estimates are associated with a margin of error of 1-4%.
The gains in support by President Wickremesinghe in April are consistent with increases in support for the UNP in the SLOTS General Election Voting Intent Tracker and recent improvements in consumer confidence. They add to evidence that the recent IMF agreement and stabilization in some economic indicators has led to increased support for the President and his party but not the SLPP.
Dr. Ravi Rannan-Eliya, SLOTS lead investigator and IHP Executive Director, said, “The recent trends in voting intention continues to point to a failure by Sajith Premadasa to pick up support from former Gotabaya Rajapaksa voters. As of April 2023, only one in five former Rajapaksa voters preferred Sajith Premadasa over other potential candidates. These former Rajapaksa voters have mostly switched to A.K. Dissanayake and President Wickremesinghe, and fluctuations in support in recent months have largely involved voters shifting from one to the other.”
SLOTS combines interviews from a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents who were previously recruited through random selection. IHP estimates voting intent using an adaptation of Multilevel Regression …read more
Source:: Ground Views
