SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

While the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is in a clear lead over the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) for the Moru­ga/Table­land seat in the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion, a re­cent poll has shown the PNM’s de­vel­op­men­tal per­for­mance in this rur­al con­stituen­cy over the last five years has been poor.

The find­ings were con­tained in a re­cent HHB and As­so­ci­at­ed Lim­it­ed poll.

The sur­vey, con­duct­ed by the firm’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Louis Bertrand was com­mis­sioned by Guardian Me­dia.

The poll fo­cused on Moru­ga/Table­land-the first of six mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies for next month’s elec­tion.

A Resident of Grand Chemin Moruga shows the St. Peters Monument on the verge of collapsing.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Vot­ers were ques­tioned on is­sues- rang­ing from ma­jor is­sues in­flu­enc­ing the vote, best par­ty ca­pa­ble of solv­ing prob­lems, the gen­er­al progress of coun­try and peo­ple, per­for­mance in the con­stituen­cy (PNM) and (UNC) as­sess­ment of can­di­dates, opin­ion of can­di­dates, rea­sons for the rat­ings and vot­ing in­ten­tions.

In Thurs­day’s T&T Guardian, the poll showed that PNM’s Moru­ga/Table­land can­di­date Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters has a clear lead over UNC can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin.

Al­though Pe­ters is ahead in the elec­tion race, the poll found high neg­a­tives for vot­ers.

This seat is cru­cial for both par­ties in next month’s poll, as it has changed hands in the last two gen­er­al elec­tions.

Yes­ter­day, the T&T Guardian re­port­ed that re­spon­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty are not con­cerned about il­le­gal Venezue­lan im­mi­grants en­ter­ing our shores through the back door.

The elec­tors are al­so not wor­ried about “let­ting for­eign na­tion­als come home.”

In ex­am­in­ing the fi­nal part of the poll, re­spon­dents were asked to rate the per­for­mance of the PNM/UNC in the de­vel­op­ment of the con­stituen­cy since 2015.

A Moruga fisherman tends to his fishing net.

Edison Boodoosingh

Re­spon­dents gave the PNM a 35 per cent “good” rat­ing to the UNC’s 29 per cent.

“On the oth­er hand, more re­spon­dents con­sid­ered the PNM’s per­for­mance to be bad (39 per cent) com­pared with the UNC’s 31 per cent,” the poll stat­ed.

Un­der “neu­tral” per­for­mance the PNM and UNC re­ceived 25 and 32 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

Two per cent re­port­ed “don’t know” for the PNM while the UNC ob­tained eight per cent.

Re­spon­dents al­so in­di­cat­ed how they “per­son­al­ly fared com­pared with five years ago.”

With re­spect to per­son­al for­tunes, “just over one third (38 per cent) re­port­ed that they were per­son­al­ly worse off to­day than five years ago,” the poll stat­ed.

Al­so, 33 per cent claimed their per­son­al sit­u­a­tion had not changed, while 30 per cent stat­ed that they were bet­ter off.