The ruling People’s National Party (PNP) and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) remain in a dead heat, even after the massive annual conference staged by the JLP last month, the latest opinion survey conducted by the Stone Polling Organisation has shown.

Stone said that when they asked voting age Jamaicans which party they would vote for in the next general election, 27.8 per cent said the PNP, while 27.3 per cent opted for the JLP.

The latest poll, conducted December 2 – 5 among 1,504 eligible voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent and basically showed the same support for both parties as the survey done in October.

At that time, 28.7 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the PNP in the next election, while 28.6 per cent said the JLP.

“The results of this poll do not show much evidence of the dramatic ‘post-conference bounce’ in the polls that the JLP had hoped for,” said Stone. “The party standings and candidate support figures remain essentially as they were in the October Stone Poll, with no significant change up or down since then. It should be noted, however, that the PNP at this point has slightly higher ‘unfavourable’ ratings by the public than the JLP.”

Interestingly, while the ranks of the undecided declined within the margin of error to 13 per cent in the December poll, from 16 per cent in the October survey, those persons who either gave no response or said that they would not vote moved from 26.5 per cent in October to a significant 31.6 per cent in December.

The pollsters also said that when they asked which party would best run the country right now, 31 per cent said the PNP, compared with 30.3 per cent who said the JLP.

When the same question was posed in August, the PNP had 32.2 per cent support, while the JLP had 29.5 per cent.

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