Viking Strategies to Shyne: “Don’t kill the messenger!”

Earlier this week, opposition leader Shyne Barrow questioned the credibility of a survey by Viking Strategies after it showed him as one of the least popular politicians in the country. On Thursday, the principal of Viking Strategies broke down the methodology behind the survey, which also covers other key issues like politics, the economy, crime, and corruption. Here’s how the lead pollster responded to Barrow’s criticism.

 

Trygve Olson, Viking Strategies

“I would say it’s probably, I think he just doesn’t like the message.  There were no complaints in 2023 when he was seen as reasonably popular. There’s a tendency to want to, if you don’t like the message, to attack the messenger.  In terms of the credibility of how the poll is structured, the methodology.  The methodology and how the process which we’re rigorous about is the standard process that you would use for doing a poll and, in fact, in a lot of ways I would argue because of Belize’s size and the fact that you have to do in-person interviews, it’s probably an even better methodology than what you get from a telephone survey or certainly an online survey in the US because we literally know who the people are that we’re talking to.”

 

Reporter

“So if Shyne Barrow were to ask you for your soundest advice on making his party electable, what, in a nugget, would that advice be?”

 

Trygve Olson

“I think it’s true that whoever’s gonna lead the party and so he’s the current leader and if they decide somebody else is going to be the leader, the same reality is true to them.  They have to get as a party, they have to stop talking about themselves and their internal drama and start talking about the people of Belize and what the people of Belize care about.”