With just months to go before the end of the Progressive Labour Party's (PLP) first term at the helm of Government, there are still a number of people who believe that "Jennifer" is the leader of the Opposition Party.

An informal poll conducted by The Royal Gazette over the last two weeks turned up some surprising answers to basic questions about the Island's politics and politicians.

Unsurprisingly, few people knew what constituency they were in under the new voting system. The draft voters' register for Bermuda's first single-seat election had just been published when The Royal Gazette began polling people on the street, and few people had bothered to check the list which is available at Island Post Offices.

Spurred by an ongoing debate about voter registration, the survey was intended to get a sense of people's familiarity with the electoral system, old and new. Some general knowledge questions were added to provide a broader context.

Eighty people were stopped on the street and questioned. The first 30 responses turned up three people who said that Jennifer Smith was the Leader of the Opposition. Those answers prompted the addition of a fifth question to the list: "Who is Bermuda's Premier?"

The other four questions were "what electoral constituency are you in under the new system?" "Who are your MPs?" "What electoral constituency are you in under the old (dual seat) system?" and "Who is the Leader of the Opposition?"

About 10 people got all the answers correct, while five returned all wrong answers.

Apart from the fact that most people are unfamiliar with basic political facts, it was also clear that locals refer to their political leaders in terms of familiarity and in some cases endearment.

Almost everyone questioned referred to Premier Jennifer Smith as "Jennifer", or some derivative of Ms Smith's first name - even those who thought she was the Opposition Leader.

UBP MP Michael Dunkley was the fourth most popular response to the question about the Leader of the Official Opposition - after Grant Gibbons, Jennifer Smith and... Freddy Wade, who died in 1996. Ms Smith and Mr. Wade (the late leader of the PLP) were each named three times as the current Opposition leader. "Frederick Wade," said one man. "No," said the reporter. "Oh - sorry - Freddy Wade."

Thirty people in total did not know the correct answer to that question and few bothered to take a wild guess.

Fifty people correctly identified Grant Gibbons as the Leader of the Opposition.

Forty-two people out of the 50 asked correctly identified "Jennifer", "Jenny" or "Jen" as the Premier of Bermuda.

A number of people referred to the Opposition Leader in equally informal terms, including "dat Gibbons bye".

Eight people admitted to not knowing who the Premier was.

And 56 people did not know who their MPs were. The scoring in this category was strict, however - first and last names had to be given to be ticked correct. A number of people knew one of their MPs but not the other, and about the same number knew either a first or last name but not both names.

"That Lister guy - there's a bunch of them, but one of them", for example, was marked incorrect because the constituent would have no idea which of the "bunch" to call first if they had a problem.

But "you know, Dale", said with certainty, was marked correct because there's only one MP named Dale.

But "Dale Fubler" was marked wrong, as was "Mark Pettingill" because the former Senator is not anybody's MP, even though he would like to become one. Mr. Pettingill announced last week that he will be running for the United Bermuda Party in the new constituency called Warwick North East, or Number 25.

He will likely be running against Mr. Butler, who currently represents Warwick East with Works Minister Alex Scott.

Forty-three people correctly identified their electoral district under the outgoing dual seat system, but almost half (37) did not know where they were and some even confused the term constituency with parish.

Lots of reasonable excuses were given by the majority of people for not knowing where their new electoral constituency was. Only ten out of the 80 people surveyed knew the answer to that question.

Five people had no idea the system had changed at all.