A poll conducted by the New Democratic Party (NDP) shows that the party will win at least 11 of the 15 seats in Wednesday’s general elections, party leader Arnhim Eustace said Wednesday night.
“The last poll that we had done by the New Democratic Party showed our party — not like what the fella said from Barbados — showed our party winning 11 full seats and possibly winning another two,” Eustace said.
“That is what our poll shows,” Eustace told party supporters at a rally in Sion Hill.
His comment came one day after Barbados-based regional polling agency, CADRES, said a poll it conducted on behalf of the incumbent Unity Labour Party (ULP) showed that the ULP will retain government.
“This thing that was published today on behalf of the ULP, to me, that is a joke. Just the following we have today at our meeting tell me there is no swing towards the ULP. There is a big swing towards the NDP, and, therefore, the NDP will win,” Eustace said.
CADRES said that 43 per cent the persons it polled in the 13 constituencies in St. Vincent indicated they intended to vote for the ULP, while 28 per cent said they will be voting for the NDP and 29 per cent of respondents were either unsure of their voting intentions or preferred not to say, CADRES said.
CADRES said that on previous occasion it has successfully estimated where this ‘Uncertain Support’ is likely to fall based on the electoral history of St Vincent.
“… our formula projects a likely national swing of +5 per cent in favour of the ULP, with a commensurate deterioration in the fortunes of the NDP,” it said in a press release.
“I am not accepting that nonsense that I am hearing about,” Eustace, however, told party supporters.
“I am not accepting that at all.”
He, however, did not indicate when the NDP’s poll was done, who conducted it, the sample size, or margin of error.
In his speech, Eustace thanked East Kingstown constituents for supporting him over the past 17 and a half as their MP and told them that after next week’s vote they will live in the constituency of the prime minister.
“… I am again offering my services as a candidate. But I can never forget the support I have had for these 17 and a half years from the people of East Kingstown,” said Eustace, who first won his seat in 1998, by 27 votes.
Eustace has retained the seat since and has increased his margin of victory in each successive vote, including in 2005 against ULP general secretary and campaign manager, Julian Francis.
In 2010, Eustace defeated the ULP’s Luke Browne by 467 votes.
“But now we come to 2015 and I am again offering my services as a candidate. But I can never forget the support I have had for these 17 and a half years from the people of East Kingstown,” Eustace said.
He sought to outline the difference between the NDP, and the ULP, which has been in office since 2001 and is seeking an unprecedented fourth consecutive term for a Labour government in SVG.
Eustace said that running a country “is not about whether you can win again.
“Running a country is about how you can improve people’s lives. And when I say lives, I don’t only mean it in the economic sense. I also mean it in the spiritual sense. But our people must develop to the point where they are improving even at the spiritual level, because they have the wherewithal to continue what they are doing in their daily lives,” Eustace told party supporters.
“Once again, I say thank you to the people of East Kingstown. This thank you does not mean I am going anywhere. This is thank you and I will continue to work with you over the years to come. You have been good to me, you have ben good to my family, you have been good to the New Democratic Party.”
He said that apart from the Grenadines, which ahs remained faithful to the NDP, “East Kingstown is the constituency that demonstrated the most its support for the New Democratic Party in the most difficult times of our history.
“And now, we are back on top again. And, next week, it will be NDP again, in a more meaningful way. It will be an NDP government in place; it will be NDP policies in place. That is what will happen.
“And this is not a boast. We have worked very hard over the last 14 years. We have come form literally nothing to something that is strong and vibrant and we have sown the seed and now we will be coming to the harvest, and that harvest, we will start reaping on December the 9th, 2015,” Eustace said on the eve of the NDP’s 40th anniversary.
The ULP held eight seats in the last Parliament, while the NDP held the remaining 7.
Once more, I blame our local media which have the means to do a collectively poll whose cost would easily be recoverable from the added revenue from their sale of newspapers, increased TV viewers, more Internet advertisement hits, etc.
Such a poll could easily still be done using the new online voter registration names.
I am sure that Kenton X. Chance would participate; as for the rest, they are probably too lazy to do the heavily lifting such an exercise would involve.
On the personal level, I did such a poll several years ago in the town where I usually spend the winter using what is called focus-group polling. It took two days and cost me a mere $EC 160.00 (plus beer and weed) and, as I recall, the results varied a mere 2-3 percent from the actual outcome in the four polls surveyed.
Now this “polling thing” has gotten completely outa-hand.
The last thing I heard was that there is a “The Peter Binose Polling Research Services” (PBPRS) too.
Kenton ‘wey yors dey’? Ha! ha! ha!.
NDP did a poll? and they showed that are winning 11 seats? where did they learn to count the 1&1 is not 11 it’s 2
Poor Eustace, he don’t know what else to do. He’s now talking about following. Which following? Check all their meetings. All the crowds are imported from other parts of the country so the same people go everywhere with them plus a drop from the local area.
You see, this is Eustace last chance, he has to do/say anything to win. Now if he knows he has 7 seats, why such a nasty campaign of lies?