All major party leaders Sri Lanka remained unpopular in January: poll

ECONOMYNEXT — All major party leaders in Sri Lanka continued to show negative favourability ratings in a January 2024 poll indicating continued unpopularity, with leftist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake increasing his favourability by 12 points to -10.

The poll, run by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), showed that favourability of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa declined by 9 points to -53 in January, while President Wickremesinghe’s also dropped by 9 points to -77.

The IHP said in a statement on February 22 that favourability estimates for each month are based on 100–500 interviews conducted during that month and during a few weeks before and afterward to ensure a minimum set of responses. The January 2024 estimates are based on 376 (Premadasa), 346 (Dissanayake), 361 (Wickremasinghe), and 121 (former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa) interviews.

According to the IHP, its Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) surveys 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.

SLOTS tracks favourability by asking respondents if they have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of a public figure or institution: net favourability being the average of the positive (+100) and negative (-100) responses. All
estimates are weighted to match the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sector, province and past voting preference. Monthly estimates are based on samples of 100+ interviews pooled from interviews in each month and from weeks before and afterwards. As the January update uses a more recent data set than the previous update, there are small changes in estimates of favourability ratings for previous months.

According to the institute, the SLOTS survey has previously been funded by the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), The Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka, and others.

“Current field work is financed by the IHP Public Interest Research Fund and others. The sponsors play no role in the study design, analysis, or interpretation of findings. Furthermore, the survey findings do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of past and present funders. Interested parties can contact IHP for more detailed data and results,” it said in the statement. (Colombo/Feb27/2024)