The ‘Arubaanse Volkspartij’ (Aruban party for the people) otherwise known as AVP was leading the poll that 24ora.com released on the 24th of March, exactly 6 months before the election. The party that came in second place is the “Movimiento Electoral di Pueblo” (electoral movement of the public) otherwise known as MEP. Surprisingly, those who will not be voting in the upcoming election or those who are still unsure who to vote for came in third place.
We have organized a poll to take place every 24th of the month to measure how every party stands for the upcoming election that was supposed to take place on the 24th of September. However, due to the abrupt change that occurred this week, the new election will be taking place on the 25th of June and it is yet to be determined whether we will only release one poll per month or more to be able to measure how each party’s position shifts in the community.
A total of 5392 people participated in the 24ora.com poll. Of these the top three consisted of 1942 people who voted for AVP, 1109 who voted for MEP and 975 who are undecided. Additionally, 602 votes went for Raiz, 170 to RED, 152 for HTC, 109 to Pueblo Prome, 92 to CURPA, 84 to POR, 76 for Accion 21, 43 for UPP and 36 for PPA.
According to this poll, conducted 3 months before the election, AVP is in the first place. This is not surprising considering that AVP also got the most votes in the previous election with 23.376 while MEP received 22.061 votes. Looking at these results, it is evident that the gap between the two parties is currently relatively large.
It is important to mention that this poll took place before the fall of the government, so we do not know that now that the Prime Minister has handed in her resignation from the cabinet, if the perception will remain the same or not. This will likely be noticeable in the next poll, whether the support for MEP as well as for POR remains the same, now that they are being investigated for embezzling government funds.
The fact that AVP and MEP scored the highest in the poll was not a surprise. However, some things did stand out, such as the large number of people that are not interested in voting or who are still undecided. This is the target group that the parties must now approach in an attempt to sway their vote. These voters are considered the swig voters that could choose for either party still, depending on the campaign’s visions and plans for the future.
The Raiz party came in third place, and RED, however with a significantly lower score, came in fourth. This might have something to do with the party’s vocality in 2017 concerning cannabis, which is still not legal. After RED we have HTC, which scored a lot higher than most were expecting. This shows that they are somewhat well received by the community, likely by the younger population.
The remaining parties scored very low, which shows that they have a lot of work to do if they wish to garner votes. It could be that their message is not reaching enough people yet, or that the community does not resonate with the parties in question.
