Grenadian data analyst Cleophas Justine Pierre says that “psychological analysis” done in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) in October shows that the incumbent Unity Labour Party (ULP) is likely to be returned to office to a historic sixth consecutive term by an 8-7 margin.
Vincentians will elect a new government in a general election on Nov. 27, which is expected to be a straight fight between the incumbent Unity Labour Party (ULP), headed by Ralph Gonsalves, who has held the post since 2001, and the New Democratic Party (NDP), which is headed by Godwin Friday.
Two independent candidates have also been nominated to compete in the polls, five years after the ULP created history by winning a fifth consecutive five-year term by a 9-6 majority, one seat more than it held in the previous Parliament.
Pierre, a statistician, demographer, and labour market consultant, said the research was conducted between Oct. 1 and 30 using “a new type of science?” that has been popular in India for 30 to 40 years.
He said the research method has been used to predict accurately the outcome of eight consecutive elections in the Caribbean, although it showed some anomalies in Guyana and Suriname regarding specific aspects of the research in those two CARICOM countries.
Pierre’s research found that while younger voters and those who live in urban areas are gravitating toward the NDP, it is likely to win seven seats.
Speaking on “The Narrative”, hosted by Grenadian broadcaster Calistra N. Farrier on Monday, Pierre said his goal is to create awareness about the new type of study as he aims to break into the United States market.
“We’re not necessarily polling. We are conducting a scientific analysis of the electorate. We are conducting a scientific analysis on the population,” Pierre said.
He said his team used random stratified sampling to identify 2,402 people in the 15 constituencies in SVG.
The margin of error was “around 2%”.
“We interviewed randomly from either social media, … their cell phone, WhatsApp, internet and in person,” Pierre said, adding that his research sampled at least one in every 16 people, but in some instances, it was one in every 25.
“… we found that 83% of persons within the ULP said that they will continue to vote the way they voted last elections and the previous elections,” Pierre said, adding that this shows that the ULP has “a very strong base”.
On the other hand, 72.5% of the electorate said here they will continue to vote, and the NDP, he said, adding that in psychology, this is called the defection rate.
“… the defection rate from ULP to NDP was 8.5% compared to the defection rate from NDP to ULP with 10.2%,” he said, noting that this trend favours the ULP “in terms of moving towards being comfortable with their political leader.
“So that’s one of the reasons why we say that the ULP will be victorious in the Nov. 27 elections.”
Pierre’s research suggests a reversal of the trend where the ULP has lost support in every election since it came to office in March 2001, with the NDP winning the popular vote in 2020 for the first time since 1998.
This is even as he said that Vincentiansgenerally do not change the way they vote.
“So the swing, the standard deviation, is very, very, very, very low, and that’s why we believe that the incumbent would prevail, and also the whole issue of what they’re seeing is that there are new infrastructure developments in the country,” Pierre said.
“People believe their roads, the port, the new hospital, so persons are more or less confident that things will get better…”
He said the sample was broken down into different age bands:18 to 25, 26 to 40, 40 to 60, 61 to 70 and 71 and above.
“We’re seeing consistently that older persons prefer to have a stronger support for the ULP, whereas the younger persons, the 18 to 25 range, the 26 to 40 range, they are more aligned to supporting the NDP,” Pierre said.
The data analyst said the Vincentian electorate is polarised between urban and rural and in terms of gender.
“… women, single mothers, they all are satisfied and has consistently voted for the ULP, whereas most men and especially persons in the urban areas, and especially young men who are either unemployed or underemployed, tend to go towards the NDP… The unemployment rate is in St. Vincent is very high.”
Pierre said that research in the Caribbean region shows that women follow elections and vote more.
“So, therefore, we believe that because of that, the ULP has a better chance of success.”
Regarding how the research was conducted, Pierre said:
“…you can use Google and get the exact information on people, who they are, where they live… So what we have done, in our methodology, is to determine what is called the electronic grid on the country, a data grid, a geospatial grid on the country. And we looked at the parishes, of course, we looked at the constituencies, but you also look at the polling stations.”
Pierre said the research also included focus groups and portfolio sampling.
“We interviewed persons within certain age bands, certain economic bands, certain gender bands,” he said, adding that an independent third party was used to test the validity of the findings.
He said that the research was not paid for, but the findings were presented to both political parties over the last week.
“We interviewed the prime minister of Saint Vincent, we showed him their data … then we interviewed the opposition, we showed them their data. And now we have very good response,” he said, adding that the research was not paid for.
Pierre said that at this time, his group tries not to be hired by anyone “because we do not want to let the other party have an advantage.
“Because if anyone hires us to do any political work, the other party cannot win … because, as I said, most political parties don’t have the technology that we have, and the technology that we have, generally comes from India, and India has a long history of psychological research.
“So, what we have done is that we have stayed away from taking funds from people, because it would have … ‘affect the democratic process’, and based on certain laws, we cannot really — so eventually we want to do that.
“But our goal with this type of technology is to get into the United States, and this is where our real market is.”
All the polling in the world cannot alter the elementary fact that the NDP is simply not ready to rule our deeply troubled and developmentally challenged country.
The science is called psephology: https://spiegato.com/en/what-is-psephology
Please listen the this: Psephology: The science of studying elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdZvZkZKKHA
I am not surprise about the research because the NDP did not concentrate of constituencies it had a chance to retake, like Central Leeward and North Windward.
However the ULP has a problem when Ralph moves out. If he tries to bypass Saboto, then the problem begins. He may try to pass the baton to Baby Doc and that’s where the ULP begins to break apart.
All yo to damn lie every one knows that they’re going to cut of the current in some areas so that they can thief the election like over the couple of years who win win have nothing to do with me
If the electorate looks at progress in terms of how their standard of living as defined by access to home ownership, mortgage friendly employment , retirement income and the ability to educate their children so that the next generation does better how would they vote and are any of these critical to quality of life tracked in SVG?