The results of an election are archived and so it’s time for MaltaToday to pat itself on the back about its “spot-on” pre-electoral surveys. Labour’s final tally was pretty close to the limit of the margin of error in the survey but, rest assured, it could have been a different thing altogether and the paper would have found something to explain why it was still right along the way.
Which, by the way, also makes the EMCS survey carried out in the Sunday Times the week before the election accurate. MaltaToday ran the story — on its front page — that the man behind it was Stefano Mallia, a close collaborator and business partner of Simon Busuttil. Shock. Scandal. The Nationalist strategy behind the survey was revealed: the party was deliberately trying to make the results look better for Labour so as to get out its apathetic vote.
Then it dawned on the paper that EMCS’ survey gave Labour only one percent more (and, it turned out, was one percent more accurate) than its own survey. But still it was unconvinced because there’s always some Nationalists pefidry if you speculate hard enough. And then it turned out that the EMCS survey gave the Greens a much lower figure — which, again, proved to be accurate — and the paper that’s run by a publishing house that’s like the political retirement home of former officials and candidates of the Green Party cried foul.
Post hoc, the paper offers an explanation for the Cassola “fluke”. Only the statistical “fluke” mind you: how lowering the bar for the Greens could have aided the Nationalist cause was never explained. The important thing is that MediaToday papers never get it wrong. And that if Richard Cachia-Caruana gets sent to the European Commission in November someone else — in this case, Simon Busuttil — will fill in the role of the paper’s pet hate.
Well the Sunday Times survey put John Attard Montalto as the favourite LP candidate. The final MaltaToday survey got all the top 5 LP candidates in the order they actually came; that was spot on. As regards AD’s result; MT surveys put it between 1.9% (April)to 3.6% (final survey). The Sunday Times survey put it at 0.3%. The result was 2.3%. I ask who was closest to the result?
First of all James, you compare like with like. The Sunday Times survey published on 31 May gave the Greens 0.3% and the MaltaToday survey published on the same day gave them 4.1%.
But that’s not the point and, in any case, both figures were within the margin of error. The point is that your paper tried to discredit the Sunday Times survey by indicating that the man behind it was a Simon Busuttil aide. The “hypothesis” was that the Nationalists would try to give an impression that Labour had a wider advantage than what they really enjoyed and this when the EMCS survey gave an advantage of 10% to your paper’s 9%.
Then your paper turned it into an issue that the EMCS survey indicated low support for the Greens. How such a “fact” could have aided the Nationalists was not explained.
MaltaToday tried to discredit the “competition” based solely on Stefano Mallia’s connections to Simon Busuttil who, from the looks of it, is destined to become the paper’s bete noir.
By the way, James, was it you who penned the article? Please say you weren’t …
I compared like with like…the problem with AD’s vote is mainly when figures are extrapolated (after removing those who would not vote). The 4.1% was an extrapolation.
In that particular survey AD was at 2.8%. (http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/05/31/t13.html)
“When all respondents – including those intending to abstain or still undecided – are taken into account, both major parties have seen their support increase since the last MaltaToday survey. At 35.4%, the PL increased by 6.4%; the PN saw support increase from 19.9% to 29% and AD remained stable at 2.8%”.
From now onwards i think extrapolations for small parties should be treated with great caution. A similar survey by Xarabank also showed AD at 3.5% (non extrapolated figures) Had they done the extrapolation they would have ended with AD over 5%.
The only fluke was in the last survey published on Wednesday which saw AD’s percentage rising to 3.6%.
No i did not pen that article.
Although I found it VERY strange that JAM was proclaimed as Labour favourite when all surveys (even those done by PN) showed Scicluna and Grech leading.