Photo courtesy of Hiru News
In the Institute for Health Policy (IHP) SLOTS polling in January 2024, all major party leaders continued to have negative favourability ratings. The net favourability rating of NPP/JVP leader A.K. Dissanayake increased 12 points to -10 while favourability of SJB leader Sajith Premadasa and President Ranil Wickremesinghe decreased by 9 points to -53 and -77 respectively.
Favourability estimates for each month are based on 100–500 interviews conducted during that month and during a few weeks before and afterward to ensure a minimum set of responses. The January 2024 estimates are based on 376 (Sajith Premadasa), 346 (A.K. Dissanayake), 361 (Ranil Wickremesinghe) and 121 (Gotabaya Rajapaksa) interviews.
Negative scores, i.e., a net favourability rating of less than zero, means that the individual or institution is unpopular. Only positive scores, i.e., net favourability is more than zero, mean that the individual or institution is popular on average.
SLOTS surveys a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents who were previously recruited through random selection. SLOTS tracks favourability by asking respondents if they have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of a public figure or institution: net favourability being the average of the positive (+100) and negative (-100) responses. All estimates are weighted to match the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sector, province and past voting preference. Monthly estimates are based on samples of 100+ interviews pooled from interviews in each month and from weeks before and afterwards. As the January update uses a more recent data set than the previous update, there are small changes in estimates of favourability ratings for previous months.