Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/824559
3 JAMES DEBONO SURVEYS by MaltaToday, Xar- bank and The Malta Independ- ent published over the weekend confirm a clear shift from the Labour Party to the Nationalist Party. But all surveys published in the same period show Labour heading towards a majority of votes, which suggests that the swing is still not big enough to overturn Labour's 2013 major- ity. All three surveys show the La- bour Party losing from 5.8% to 9% of its 2013 voters to the Na- tionalist Party and the Nation- alist Party losing between 3% and 4% of its 2013 voters. In this regard the Torca survey is the exception, showing La- bour losing only 3.9% of its 2013 voters while gaining 4.6% of PN voters of 2013. But numerically the PN would still gain more votes than it loses. For based on these percentage figures while the PN would gain 6,533 from the PL, the PN would lose 6,091 to the PL. Moreover when losses of each respective party to ab- stention are taken into ac- count all four surveys show Labour losing more votes than the PN. The calcula- tion is based on the percent- age which has been lost and gained by each party to its rival party and to abstention, as a percentage of the actual number of 2013 voters. Gains for the PN range from 4,420 votes in the Xarabank survey to 9,781 in the In- dependent survey while PL losses range from 9,891 in the MaltaToday survey to 8,133 in the Xarabank survey. The Torca survey also shows Labour losing more votes than the PN over 2013. While the PN loses 353 votes, La- bour loses 4,523, mainly due to a higher abstention rate among PL voters. In fact while the Torca sur- vey shows practically no shift from the PL to the PN, it shows the highest abstention rate among Labour respond- ents. In real terms the Torca survey shows 4,523 Labour voters from 2013 not voting now. These figures do not take in- to account gains made by the parties from new voters and non-voters in the 2013 elec- tion. MaltaToday's survey in- dicates Labour ahead among new voters and the PN ahead among non-voters in 2013. Despite indications that the PN is gaining more votes than the PL over 2013 figures, all sur- veys show the PL leading both in the extrapolated figures (af- ter don't knows are eliminated) and in non extrapolated figures. Labour's gain ranges from just 2.2 points in the Xarabank sur- vey and 9.3 points in the Torca survey. When figures are ex- trapolated Labour's lead ranges from 2.6 points in the Xara- bank survey to 12 points in the Torca survey. maltatoday, TUESDAY, 16 MAY 2017 News Surveys show larger swing to PN than PL PORTOMASOLIVE.COM REGISTER NOW 1 2 3 Register your personal account JOIN DEPOSIT EARN CASHBACK Place your deposit, play & participate in our promotions You're always a winner at Portomaso Live You're always a winner All surveys conducted over this weekend show the PL losing more votes than the PN but swing is still not big enough to overturn PL's strong 2013 majority Table 1: Percentage of 2013 voters switching from one party to the other or abstaining PL to PN PN to PL Not voting PN Not Voting PL % % % % Malta Today 6.3 2.9 0.4 1.9 Xarabank 5.8 3.6 0.4 1.9 Independent 9 4 - - Torca 3.9 4.6 0.6 2.7 Table 2: Votes lost and gained by PN and PL to each other and to abstention. Figures reflect percentage of actual 2013 votes for each party PN PL MaltaToday +6185 -9898 Xarabank +4420 -8133 Independent +9781 -9781* Torca -353 -4965 (*figure does not include losses to abstention as figure was not available) Extrapolated results of 4 surveys (after eliminating don't knows) PL PN Others MaltaToday 52 47 1 Xarabank 50.6 48 1.4 Independent 53.4 44.2 2.4 Torca 55.9 43.5 0.6