Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1494707
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 MARCH 2023 MALTATODAY SURVEY KURT SANSONE ROBERT Abela's trust rating has suffered its biggest fall in a month with the Prime Minister now scoring 34.3%, his lowest ever result, a MaltaToday sur- vey shows. Abela's trust rating declines by almost 11 points in the March survey when compared to February as his party is pun- ished by voters over the Stew- ard hospitals scandal. His rival Bernard Grech regis- ters an increase of six points to reach 26.1%, closing the trust gap to eight points. Abela remains more popular than his party, while Grech still trails the PN. Significantly, the survey shows a sharp increase of eight points among those who say they trust none of the two lead- ers. This cohort of voters now stands at 35.8%. The Prime Minister's fall comes in the wake of the court decision that annulled the hos- pitals concession over fraud and unfulfilled contractual obligations. The project was a flagship of the Joseph Muscat administration. Abela strong among un- der-50s Contrary to the results ob- tained by the parties, Abe- la beats Grech among men and women and across all age groups. Among young voters (16- 35) and those aged between 36 and 50, Grech trails badly behind Abela. The PL lead- er scores 24.8% among young voters against the PN leader's 16.3%, while among the 36-50 cohort Abela hits 30.1% against Grech's 16.3%. On a geographical basis, Grech beats Abela in Gozo and the Northern Harbour re- gions but fails to maintain his own party's winning streak in the Western region. Abela triumphs in the other four re- gions. Grech's strongest perfor- mance is in Gozo where he scores a trust rating of 41.8% against the PL leader's 29%. Abela's strongest performance is in the Southern Harbour re- gion, where he obtains 49.9% against the PN leader's 12.5%. Abela retains the trust of 70.9% of those who voted for the Labour Party in the 2022 general election, while Grech retains the trust of 68.3% of Nationalist voters. The survey shows that 3.3% of Labour voters trust Grech, while 3.7% of Nationalist vot- ers trust Abela. Each leader has to contend with a quarter of voters for their respective par- ties who trust neither of them. Among non-voters in 2022, 79.1% trust no one, while Abe- la enjoys a slight edge over his rival – 6.5% of non-voters trust the Prime Minister while 5.6% trust the Opposition leader. The findings suggest that al- though voters have punished Abela over the hospitals scan- dal, he remains the PL's best asset. It remains to be seen whether the Prime Minister can recover from this pummel- ling over the coming months but the numbers so far suggest that he retains an advantage over his rival, who still strug- gles to make inroads among voters under 50 and in the south. Methodology The survey was carried out between Friday 3 March 2023 and Friday 10 March 2023. 574 respondents opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, age and gender was used to repli- cate the Maltese demographic. The estimated margin of error is 4.8% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error. Abela hit by massive 11-point trust fall