DCDM Research: Political apathy has never been so high

The monthly political survey for December published by DCDM Research this week has been quite revealing of the underlying sentiments of the public towards politics. Among the findings, the ruling coalition has lost the favours of the respondents, with its approval rating halving over the two years it has been in power.

When it won the December 2014 general elections with a surprising landslide victory, the Alliance Lepep rode a wave of popularity with its approval rating standing at 86 per cent according to the DCDM Research political barometer. Two years later, in December 2016, the government’s popularity has halved, standing at only 43 per cent according to the latest survey released by the same organisation.

“After two years in power, the Alliance Lepep finds itself in a delicate position today. Politically, it has been affected by the internal turbulences and contested legislations. Also, public opinion is unfavourable towards the coalition, as depicted by the findings of the poll for December 2016,” said DCDM Research in its publication issued on Tuesday 27 December 2016.

The government’s loss of popularity however, does not necessarily transcribe into a renewed trust of the public towards opposition parties, if we are to trust the results of the poll carried out by DCDM Research. Approval ratings of the opposition parties has even decreased over the past two since the last general elections. It dropped from 48 per cent in December 2014 to stand at 42 per cent in December 2016.

According to DCDM Research, the drop in popularity of the opposition might be due to a less favourable opinion of the public towards the government, the assimilation of opposition parties as belonging to the same political class and also, a perceived lack of political alternatives.

This proves to be an interesting insight. Despite the decrease in the government’s popularity, as per the poll results, the opposition is failing to capitalise on this opening. What is happening is the population has developed an increasing apathy towards politics. This can be seen from another chart released by DCDM Research regarding the percentage of interviewees who say they are close to a political party.

According to the poll results, 60 per cent of the respondents do not feel close to any political party r they refuse to answer that question. The number is the same as in December 2014, even though it has evolved throughout the two-year period reaching a peak of 67 per cent in October 2016 and a low of 48 per cent in March 2015.

Political apathy is nothing new, however, it seems that an increasing number of persons who are shunning politics. Some of the signs include the number of swing voters and decreasing vote banks of parties as seen during the December 2014 general elections. Also, as parties have entered into political alliances and opposed each other over the years since the country’s independence, the country has reached a point where all the different permutations have been used by now. This is due to the fact that the country has only four main political parties, the MMM, MSM, Labour Party and PMSD. All of those parties have been in alliance at one point in time except for an MMM/PMSD alliance.