Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1520629
RESPONDENTS to a MaltaTo- day Survey have given higher rat- ings to Labour's crop of elected MEPs from the last 20 years, in a face-off with their Nationalist counterparts. Asked to rate them between 0 – meaning they did nothing good for the country – to 5, meaning they did a lot, Labour's politicians in Brussels were rated 3.1 out of a maximum five, whilst the PN's were given a 2.7 rating. While both sets of MEPs passed the halfway mark, the difference is also largely explained by the far more negative rating that La- bour-voting respondents gave to Nationalist MEPs. While PN voters give a marginally positive rating of 2.7 to Labour MEPs, La- bour voters gave the PN's MEPs a lower rating of 2.3. Non-voters also give Labour MEPs a slightly higher rating of 2.6, compared to 2.5 for Nation- alist MEPs. The negative rating given to Na- tionalist MEPs by Labour voters reflects longstanding criticism by the PL that the Opposition's MEPs have consistently worked against the national interest by supporting rule of law resolutions which put the Labour govern- ment in a bad light, particularly after the assassination of journal- ist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Moreover, Labour voters tend to be more generous in rating their party's MEPs, than PN vot- ers for their own party MEPs: Labour voters gave their elected MEPs a 3.8 rating, while PN vot- ers gave PN MEPs a 3.5 rating. Despite these differences, a sig- nificant chunk of voters give both Labour and Nationalist MEPs a high rating: 48% of current PL voters rated PN MEPs 3 points or more, and 53% of PN voters gave Labour MEPs a similar rating. A breakdown by region shows that both sets of MEPs get their best rating in Gozo, where both parties surpass the 3-point mark. Unsurprisingly Nationalist MEPs get the lowest rating (2.6) in the southern harbour region, which includes Cottonera, while Labour MEPs get their lowest rating in the northern region (2.9). Respondents aged over 65 tend to be more generous in their rat- ing of the work of MEPs for their country than younger respond- ents. In this category Labour MEPs are given a rating of 3.3 while Nationalist MEPs are given a rating of 2.9. Both Labour MEPs (2.9) and Nationalist MEPs (2.6) get their lowest rating in the 16-35 years age bracket. The results also reflect the greater turnover of Labour MEPs. Over the past 20 years the PN has been represented by five MEPs, namely David Casa who was elected in all previous four elections, Roberta Metsola who has served since 2013 and was appointed President of the European Parliament in 2020, Simon Busuttil who served from 2004 and 2013 when he was elected leader of the party, Therese Comodini Cachia who served between 2014 till 2017 when she was elected to the Maltese parliament, and Fran- cis Zammit Dimech who briefly replaced her. On the other hand, the PL has been represented by 10 MEPs, which included Joseph Muscat before he was elected party lead- er in 2008, John Attard Montal- to who served one term, Louis Grech before being appointed deputy Prime Minister in 2013, Joseph Cuschieri who replaced Muscat in 2008, Edward Sciclu- na who served between 2009 and 2013 when he was appointed Fi- nance Minister, Marlene Mizzi who replaced Scicluna and was re-elected for another term in 2014, Miriam Dalli before she became Energy Minister in 2020, former Labour leader Alfred Sant who served two full terms, Claudette Abela Baldacchino, Josianne Cutajar and Alex Agius Saliba. Methodology The survey was carried out was carried between 15 April 2024 and 24 April 2024 for which 656 peo. ple opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, gender and age was used. A fraction of those who opted to complete the survey chose not to answer some of the questions for which they are treated as missing values. Missing values analysis was then carried to determine the type of technique to replace the values. A combination of logistic and linear regression with predictive mean matching where applicable was used to replace certain missing values completing and enlarging the sample set from which the final results were extracted. The margin of error for this result 3.84% for a confidence interval of 95%. 11 SURVEY maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 MAY 2024 JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt Labour MEPs get higher ratings than PN counterparts Both Labour and PN MEPs are highly rated by MaltaToday Survey respondents but Labour voters tend to be more negative about their political adversaries than Nationalist voters