COLOMBO – Sri Lanka leftist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) has emerged as a favoured presidential prospective in a voting intent poll conducted in December 2023 among 522 likely voters.
The Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP) showed Dissanayake, who leads the leftist National People’s Power (NPP) gained the support from half of the likely voters (50%) in October, followed by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa with a third (33%) and President Ranil Wickremesinghe just 9%. A generic candidate for the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) came a close 4th with 8%
A separate general election voting intention poll also carried out by IHP among 522 prospective voters during the same period saw Dissanayake’s leftist NPP enjoying the support of 39% of those surveyed, ahead of Premadasa’s SJB at 27%, the president’s United National Party (UNP) at 6% and the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) at 10%.
With regard to presidential voting intent, support for the NPP leader has increased 14 points since mid-2023, with the December
estimates suggesting a possible drop in that month, IHP said in a statement. Support for Premadasa has increased 3% since September 2023 with a rising trend in that time, while support for President Wickremesinghe has declined in the same six months.
“This update is for all adults and is based on a revised MRP model using data from 14,941 interviews conducted from Oct. 2021 to January 7, 2024, with 522 interviews during December 2023. IHP will resume reporting voting intent amongst likely voters at a later date. One hundred model iterations were run to capture model uncertainty. Margins of error are assessed 1–4% for December,” the institute said.
“The SLOTS combines interviews from a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents who were previously recruited through random selection. IHP estimates voting intent using an adaptation of Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification (MRP), with multiple imputations to account for uncertainties in its modelling, exploiting data from all SLOTS interviews to estimate voting in a particular month.
“The December 2023 MRP estimates are based on 522 interviews conducted in December 2023, and 14,941 interviews conducted overall from 1 October 2021–7 January 2024, with a margin of error assessed as 3–4% for Dissanayake and Premadasa, and 1–2% for Ranil Wickremesinghe and the other potential candidate. All estimates are adjusted to ensure the sample matches the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, geographical location, and voting in the 2019 Presidential and 2020 General Elections,” IHP said.
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