Stability is the top concern among Labour voters, according to a survey carried out on Monday that has been seen by Lovin Malta.

The survey, which sought to gauge the popularity of leadership contenders Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne and Labour MP Robert Abela, was conducted among 465 people who voted Labour in 2017.

The survey concluded that Abela was the preference of 57.3% of Labour voters, against 42.7% for Fearne.

The participants of this survey were already interviewed about their leadership preferences last June, a few days after the MEP election.

In June, the leadership contenders considered for the survey were Abela, Fearne, Ian Borg, Miriam Dalli and Konrad Mizzi. 

In that survey, Dalli was the favourite, enjoying the support of 45% of voters.

In this week’s survey, almost 70% of Dalli’s voters now opt for Abela, while Fearne gets 57% of Borg’s voters.

The June respondents who could not be reached or did not want to reply this time round were distributed according to how preferences have shifted now on the basis of their previous replies.

This is how the survey arrived to the 57% vs 43% split between Abela and Fearne today.

Respondents to this week’s survey were also asked to choose their main issue of concern among a list of options. Out of those who answered, 64.4% opted for stability. Kitchen politics issues (employment, cost of living etc) however were mentioned by 27.0% of respondents. Immigration was mentioned by just 4.4% of the participants.

Fearne is seen as the ‘stability’ candidate as 70% of those who opted for him went for such option. For Abela, it was 60% of voters. On the other hand, Abela is considered to be more of a kitchen politics candidate as the share of voters who prefer him over such issues is twice as much as that of Fearne.

According to a survey published by MaltaToday last Sunday, Fearne enjoys a higher trust rating than Abela, even among PL voters.

Lovin Malta will be carrying out its own survey this week.