Muscat gets 59% approval in first days of government

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is still enjoying a honeymoon period with the electorate, a month after a general election in which the Labour Party trounced the incumbent Nationalist Party by a 12-point margin.

A MaltaToday survey conducted between Monday 8 April and Wednesday 10 April showed the new Prime Minister enjoying an approval rate of 59% - well above his party's 55% electoral score.

Only 6% disapproved of his performance, while 13% were tepid, deeming his performance "fair".

Significantly, only 16% of PN voters expressed a negative judgement of Muscat's performance, while one in five (19%) expressed a positive judgement. This is a clear indication that a segment of Nationalist voters have a positive impression of Muscat's first days in office.

The vast majority of PN voters were ambivalent, with 33% describing Muscat's performance as fair and 32% replying "don't know". Many of them said that it is too early to judge.

Muscat's first 30 days in office saw the new Prime Minister appoint the largest cabinet in Malta's post-independence history, being 14 ministers and eight junior ministers.

Controversial decisions taken by the new government included a demand for the resignation of parliamentary secretaries in the civil service, the appointment of Franco Debono as coordinator of the new constitutional convention and the appointment of former deputy leader Anglu Farrugia as Speaker.

The new government also wrote to the Holy See to commence a negotiation of the Church-State agreement, which gives supremacy to ecclesiastical courts in cases of marriage annulments. Labour has also announced plans for land reclamation and a yacht marina in Gozo.

The survey coincided with the presentation of the government's first budget, which retained the tax cuts for high income earners contemplated in the last budget (presented by the Gonzi administration).

No comparable survey exists from Gonzi's first 30 days in office in 2008, but MaltaToday surveys indicate that Gonzi did have a honeymoon period. In April 2008, 79% of total respondents judged his choice of ministers positively.

But Lawrence Gonzi's popularity started to nosedive in subsequent months.

MaltaToday's first survey on Gonzi's performance, held in June 2008, showed the Prime Minister earned a positive rating from just 38% of voters.

Although only 30% judged his performance negatively, a significant 18% judged it middling, describing his performance as "fair". Another 14% would not commit either way.

After winning the 2008 election by a whisker but against all odds, Gonzi was already facing sceptical public opinion. The verdict on his first 90 days after re-election was lukewarm at best.

By September 2009, Gonzi's performance as Prime Minister had already reached its lowest point, with only 19% expressing a positive judgement.

Significantly, 9.2% of those who voted for the PN on March 8 expressed a negative judgement when asked to assess Gonzi's performance in the past three months.

Methodology

A total of 667 respondents were contacted by telephone between Monday 8 April and Wednesday 10 April. The survey was stopped when a sample quota of 500 was reached. Respondents were selected through random sampling. The survey has a margin of error of +/-4.4%. The results of the survey were weighted to reflect the ages and gender balance of the population. Respondents were asked how they voted in the 2013 and 2008 general elections.