The Labour Party would win an election tomorrow with a relative majority of 48.5 per cent of the votes, according to a survey commissioned by Xarabank on the occasion of Labour’s third year in government.
The survey found that Labour lost 6.3 per cent since the last general election, the PN increased by 2.8 per cent to 46.1 per cent and the gap between the two parties has reduced to 2.4 per cent.
According to the survey, the shift from the PL voters (except switchers) to PN voters amounted to 3.4 per cent, and the shift from PN to PL amounted to 3.6 per cent and was not significant, but the major loss for the PL was in the switcher category.
In the switcher category, where people voted PL in 2013 and PN in 2008, PL only secured the votes of 31.6 per cent, losing 31.6 per cent to PN, 3.5 per cent to AD, and 15.8 per cent of the voters saying that they would not be voting.
The survey found that the most popular issue at the moment was corruption leading with 37 per cent, followed by 34.8 per cent of the interviewees saying they were not concerned with any issues and that everything was fine.
The government’s performance rating for these last three years was on the whole positive with 17.1 per cent more positive than negative.
If the results were analysed by past election choices, the government was rated overall more positive than negative by 82.9 per cent of the PL voters in 2013 and 22.7 per cent of the switchers.
The government was rated more negative than positive by 53.4 per cent of the PN voters of 2013.
Joseph Muscat led Simon Busuttil in trust ratings by 10.7 per cent.
The lead in trust ratings that Dr Muscat enjoyed over Dr Busuttil was significantly higher in men (16.2 per cent) and lower (5.3 per cent) in women.