Monday, February 14, 2011

AG questions Guardian poll, suggests 81% performance rating means PM 'wildly popular'

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan has an interesting take on the poll published in Sunday's Guardian newspaper which stated in the headline that the popularity of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had fallen.

However the story noted that 81 per cent of respondents to the poll gave the Prime Minister a favourable rating with only 19 per cent rating her performance as poor or very poor.

The Guardian didn't say what percentage support Persad-Bissessar enjoyed before the poll was taken. And that's the point Ramlogan made when the Guardian asked for his comment on the survey.

“Her rating has fallen from what?" Ramlogan asked the paper. “Where is the intellectual analysis to substantiate the results? There is no comparison,” he said.

Ramlogan said one could interpret the results of the survey in a completely different way. “One can say that Kamla continues to be wildly popular...And I’m using the same figures,” he said.

“Nineteen per cent of those surveyed rated her performance poor and extremely poor. The other 81 per cent rated her performance fair, good and excellent.

“So, if her popularity fell to 80 per cent, it must be that she had a 100 per cent before. It would have meant that even the PNM was supporting her, too,” he told the paper.

Ramlogan noted if 80 per cent of those surveyed responded positively, it showed that there was still significant support for the PM.”

Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal also spoke with the Guardian about the poll. He admitted that the government made some mistakes.

“Clearly one of the mistakes was the appointment of a former director of the Strategic Services Agency. There are some minor matters that we had earlier on with some ministers speaking out of turn and outside of their portfolios but once we hold together and don’t repeat major mistakes we will be good,” Moonilal said.

However he said he expects things will improve. “We want to engage in aggressive delivery of goods and services...We started 700 units in Union Hall and next week we will go to Princes Town to turn the sod for 700 more...

“The Prime Minister’s rating is still high," he said. “We have taken note of the critical comments of performance with individual ministers and we take note and will strive to improve our performance,” he said.

“We believe that there is always room for improvement and as we move forward, we are happy with the approval rating we have received in the poll and we welcome the critical remarks because it helps us to review our policies and programmes.”

He is "gratified" by the extremely high rating that the Prime Minister received.

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Jai & Sero

Jai & Sero

Our family at home in Toronto 2008

Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai