MaltaToday performance barometer: Robert Abela administration scrapes pass-mark

Robert Abela’s government is scoring just above the pass mark when assessed on its own merits, according to the most recent MaltaToday survey. 

Respondents were asked to rate the government’s performance on a scale ranging from a minimum score of one and a maximum score of five.  

48% gave the government a low rating of one or two, 32% gave it a high rating of four and five, and 21% of respondents gave the government a modest rating of three. This works out to a national average score of 2.7 out of a maximum of five points. 

This is the first time that MaltaToday has asked respondents to rate the government’s performance. 

The aim of the new government performance barometer – which will be retained in future political surveys – is to assess the government’s popularity, independently of that of the Opposition or its leader, as is the case with the trust barometer and the voting intentions survey.  

The latest trust barometer gave Robert Abela a trust lead of 12 points over Opposition leader Bernard Grech while the electoral barometer shows the PL leading the PN by 4.4 points.

Non-voters give government a lower rating 

The government performance barometer shows the government getting its highest rating among current PL voters (4.2), and its lowest rating among current PN voters (1.4). 

But significantly the government also gets a low rating of 2.2 among respondents who are intent on not voting in a forthcoming election. In this category 60% give Abela’s government a score of 1 or 2.  

This suggests that recovering support among this category will be difficult for Labour, unless its performance in government improves substantially. 

In fact, even among Labour voters in 2022, a substantial 15% give the government a low rating of one or two. This figure is nearly equivalent to that of Labour voters in 2022 who are now intent on not voting (16%). 

In contrast, only 14% of PN voters in 2022 give the government a rating of 3 points or over.

Younger voters give lowest rating 

In terms of age, it is younger voters who give Abela’s government its lowest rating. Among 16 to 35-years-olds, a category where Abela is more trusted than Grech but where a majority trust neither leader, the government just scrapes the 2.5 pass-mark. 

In this age group, only 16.6% give the government a high rating of 4 and 5 while 52% give the government a low rating of 1 or 2. But this age group also reports the highest percentage who give the government a modest rating of 3 points (31.5%).  

In contrast, the government is awarded its highest rating by 51- to 65-year-olds (2.9) among which 37.2% give the government a high rating of 4 and 5. 

On a regional level, the government gets its lowest rating (2.4) in the north harbour region, which is the only one where the PN enjoys a majority over Labour. On the other hand, the government is best rated in the western region (3.1) and the southern harbour region (2.8). 

In Gozo, the only region which alone corresponds to an electoral district, Abela’s government is rated at 2.6, which is slightly lower than the national average. Gozo also includes the highest percentage which give the lowest score (35.6%). 

Among different educational brackets, it is secondary-educated respondents who give the government the highest rating (3), while the lowest rating is among the tertiary educated (2.5).

Methodology: 

The survey was carried out between Wednesday 10 May 2023 and Friday 19 May 2023. 634 respondents opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, age and gender was used to replicate the Maltese demographic. The estimated margin of error is 4.2% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.