A slight majority of people believe the opposition will deliver telling blows in its planned no-confidence debate against the government, according to an opinion survey by the National Institute for Development Administration, or Nida Poll.
The poll was carried out on Jan 22-23 on 1,252 people aged 18 and over of various levels of education and occupations throughout the country on their opinions of the opposition's censure plan.
Asked about the opposition's targets, 42.6% said the censure debate should be against the entire cabinet; 35.5% said it should aim at only selected individual ministers; 13.8% said it is not yet time to censure the government; 5.3% said the government should not be grilled at all; and 2.7% had no comment or were not interested.
On whether they believe the opposition would come up with solid evidence against the government, a slight majority, 53.7%, were positive. Of them, 20.8% was confident the opposition would do well and 33% had moderate confidence in it.
But 43.8% were not convinced. Of them, 28.5% said they did not believe the opposition would have damning or accurate evidence against the government and 15.3% had no confidence in it at all.
The rest, 2.7%, had no comment or were not interested.
Asked whether they believe a report that the Pheu Thai Party, the opposition leader, has reached a special deal with the government to leave some cabinet ministers out of the list of targets, only 5.3% said they strongly believed in it and 16.8% said the report was quite believable.
A majority — 66.7% — did not believe in the report. Of them, 32.9% thought it was not possible and was just another political game while 32.8% said it was totally unbelieveable, reasoning that the Pheu Thai has a clear stance of not supporting the government.
The rest, 11.1%, had no comment or were not interested.