MaltaToday Survey | Relative majority want Mallia out [FULL DATA]

A relative majority of respondents (39%) want Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia to resign after last week’s shooting incident involving the minister’s driver. 33% do not want him to resign while 25% are undecided.

Mallia’s position is deemed untenable not just by an overwhelming majority of PN voters (82%) but also by a substantial number of traditional Labour voters and switchers.

Significantly 21% of all Labour voters and 53% of switchers who voted PN in 2008 and PL in 2013 think that Mallia should resign.

Due to the indecision expressed by 25% of respondents, the survey does not produce an absolute majority in favour of Mallia’s resignation.

The survey contrasts with on-line polls on the Malta Independent, the Times of Malta and MaltaToday which registered a higher support for Mallia’s resignation (85%, 70% and 51% respectively).

This could be attributed to the fact that undecided respondents or respondents who are not interested in the issue, are less likely to participate in online polls.

An extrapolation of the MaltaToday survey after undecided respondents are eliminated shows 54% supporting Mallia’s resignation.

But the survey indicates that strategic groups of voters like switchers, university educated voters and a minority of traditional Labour voters think Mallia should go.

The survey shows that although a majority of PL voters (60%) think Mallia should stay in Muscat’s ministerial cabinet, a majority of switchers (53%) think he should go.  Only 35% of switchers replied no when asked whether the minister should resign.

Ironically although Mallia has a Nationalist past, support for his resignation is higher among former Nationalist voters who switched to Labour than among respondents who voted Labour in both the 2008 and 2013 election.

In fact while 17% of Labour voters in the 2008 general election want Mallia to resign, the percentage rises to 21% among 2013 Labour voters, thanks to the opinion expressed by most switchers in favour of the minister’s resignation.

The survey also shows that PN voters are not unanimous in favour of Mallia’s resignation even if the vast majority (82%) follow the party line.

In fact 6% of PN voters think that the minister should not resign while 10% refrained from expressing judgement. A further 2% of PN voters mentioned another option, like having other officials resign or having Mallia resign temporarily until his fate is sealed by the magisterial inquiry.

This view was also expressed by 4% of respondents with a university and a post secondary education.

The survey also shows that while university educated respondents overwhelmingly want the Home Affairs Minister to leave (65%), respondents with a post secondary or secondary level of education are more evenly split. Interestingly respondents who have not been to university but who have a post secondary level of education are the most likely to be undecided on whether the Home Affairs Minister should resign. 

Respondents with a primary level of education are the only cohort which thinks Mallia should not resign.