Photo courtesy of Asianews
According to the Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) SLOTS polling conducted in November, 25% of Sri Lankan adults believed the country was heading in the right direction while 16% expressed uncertainty about its trajectory. However the majority, 59%, still thinks the country is heading in the wrong direction.
There was a temporary boost in optimism in the days immediately after the presidential election but since then this has subsided. However that overall sentiment remains more positive than before the elections.
Despite some temporary improvement in public sentiment since the presidential election, public sentiment remains largely negative but was not as unfavourable relative to other countries as it was before the elections. According to a global IPSOS poll of 29 countries conducted in November, Sri Lanka’s sentiment ranks below the global average for pessimism.
The Institute for Health Policy (IHP) conducts the SLOTS survey to track changes in health and social conditions, and public opinion in the country, on behalf of the Sri Lanka Health and Ageing Study (SLHAS) consortium of Sri Lankan academic and research institutions.
SLOTS polls the public’s outlook on the overall direction of the country by asking people: “Would you say things in the country are headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?”. Respondents are also allowed not to answer or to say they “Don’t know” or are “Not sure”. The percentages saying the country is moving in the right or wrong direction is based on all those who were interviewed so numbers for right and wrong tracks will not sum to 100% because of don’t knows and refusals.
To minimize sample bias, estimates are based on weighting respondents to match the national population for age, sex, sector, ethnicity, religion, education, socioeconomic status ranking and geographical location.