Half Of Malta Believes Joseph Muscat Could Be Involved In Cover-Up Of Daphne Caruana Galizia Murder, Survey Shows
Around half of Malta believes outgoing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat could be involved in a cover-up in the case of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, according to a survey commissioned by Lovin Malta.
The survey was conducted by BREIN over 16th and 21st December using a mix of telephone and online responses. Over 3,000 responses were received, out of which a sample of 1,027 responses was generated.
People were asked whether they are convinced that Muscat could be involved in a cover-up and given options between 1 to 5, with 1 meaning that they are not convinced at all, 3 that they are unsure and 5 that they are totally convinced.
Out of the people who provided valid responses, 40.8% said they are totally convinced that Muscat could be involved in a cover-up, with 11.3% stating that they are somewhat convinced (ie. the 4 score), a combined total of 51.3% who believe the outgoing Prime Minister could have helped cover up the assassination of a journalist.
Meanwhile, 10% said they are unsure, 11.3% said they are somewhat unsure (the 2 score) and 29.4% said they are not convinced at all.
A significant political divide could be witnessed in the responses, with people who voted PN at the last election giving an average response of 4.4 and people who voted PL giving an average response of 2.43.
Asked whether they are convinced that Muscat could be involved in the actual murder of Caruana Galizia, the response dipped, with 23.3% stating that they are totally convinced and 10% stating that they are somewhat convinced.
15.9% said they are unsure, 11.2% said they are somewhat unsure and 38.8% said they are not convinced at all.
Again, a sharp political divide was witnessed, with PN voters giving an average score of 3.74 and PL voters giving an average score of 1.95.
Businessman Yorgen Fenech has been charged with conspiring to assassinate Caruana Galizia and his relationship with Muscat has since come to light, with revelations that he had gifted the Prime Minister a luxurious Bvlgari watch and expensive bottles of wine.
Fenech hasn’t implicated Muscat in the murder but he has implicated the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri, who police have confirmed is being investigated for homicide.
Asked whether they think people from the Office of the Prime Minister were involved in the murder of Caruana Galizia, a whopping 50% responded that they are totally convinced and a further 12.4% said they are somewhat convinced. 12.9% said they are unsure, 9.3% said they are somewhat unconvinced and 15.4% said they are totally unconvinced.
The political divide isn’t even that pronounced here, with PN voters giving an average score of 4.55 and PL voters giving an average score of 3.14, indicating that even PL voters are slightly leaning towards the possibility of involvement of OPM officials in the assassination of a journalist.
Survey methodology:
The data collection was conducted by BREIN over a one week period (16th to 21st December). The questionnaire was administered through CAWI (web interviews) and CATI (telephone interviews), with over 3000 responses.
Seeking to collect responses from a sample that is optimally representative of the population of the Maltese Islands, a stratified sample was devised on the counts of individuals based on the latest national statistics published periodically by the National Statistics Office (NSO). The final sample of 1027 responses is estimated to represent the population in terms of gender, age and location distribution exceeding a 95% confidence interval and an accuracy level of 97%.
What do you make of the survey findings?
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