18% still willing to vote for Cyrus Engerer

Malta Independent Saturday, 17 May 2014, 10:00 Last update: about 12 years ago

The conviction of Cyrus Engerer over his distribution of compromising pictures of his ex-partner would not have deterred nearly a fifth of the Maltese population from including him in their vote, a survey commissioned by The Malta Independent shows.

The proportion may be even higher, as another fifth of the 300 respondents surveyed chose not to comment.

This month’s edition of The Malta Independent’s survey, inevitably, focused on the upcoming European Parliament election, and the fieldwork took place this week – after Mr Engerer announced that he would withdraw his candidature after receiving a two-year suspended jail term.

Respondents were thus asked whether they would still vote for him should he have decided to remain in the running. As it turns out, 62.3% said that they would not, while a further 19.7% refused to comment; but the remaining 18% confirmed that they would still have voted for Mr Engerer.

There were no significant difference between men and women: they were equally likely to state that they would still vote for Mr Engerer, while men were slightly more likely not to answer the question.

But there was a clear and obvious difference between those who voted for the Nationalist Party and those who voted for the Labour Party in the last general election: not least because those who were not intending to vote for Labour candidates in the first place had already ruled out Mr Engerer.

However, even those who voted Labour last year were more likely to rule out Mr Engerer than not, although only by a slight margin. While 39.5% would still include him in their vote, 45.4% said that they would not, although the remaining 15.1% who refused to comment could shift the balance.

The results for PN voters are perhaps unsurprising, with 89.6% outright ruling out voting for Mr Engerer. Only 1.9% still considered voting for him, while 8.5% did not comment.

Further survey results - including which candidates respondents are planning to vote for – will be published in tomorrow’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.