The president's approval rating according to the 'poll of polls.' Approval is in blue, disapproval in orange. Almost six in 10 Mexicans are unimpressed with the efforts of the federal government to combat corruption while two-thirds grade it poorly for its performance on public security, according to a new poll.
Conducted in April and early May by the media partners El Financiero and Bloomberg, the poll found that 59% of 2,000 respondents believe that the government led by President López Obrador is doing a bad job on fighting corruption, a scourge the president has pledged to eliminate but which continues to tarnish his administration.
That’s a 13-point jump compared to March and a 22-point increase compared to January.
The percentage of respondents who believe that the government is doing a good job on combatting corruption fell to 23% in April from 33% in March and 36% in January.
Out of four areas considered by the poll, the government fared worst in public security. Only 18% of respondents said the López Obrador administration is doing a good job addressing the ongoing high levels of violence while 67% said the opposite.
The former figure fell from 20% in March and 26% in January while the latter increased from 61% last month and 57% at the start of the year.
In economic matters, 49% of respondents rated the government’s performance poorly while only 28% praised it. Hit hard by the coronavirus and associated economic restrictions, GDP slumped 8.5% in 2020 and the economy remained in recession in the first quarter of 2020, according to preliminary year-over-year numbers.
Despite Mexico having the fourth highest Covid-19 death toll in the world, the government achieved its best poll result in the area of health, with 36% of respondents saying that it is doing a good job. However, a slightly higher percentage of those polled – 38% – said that the government is performing badly in the area.
Even though the El Financiero/Bloomberg poll shows there is significant discontent with the government, the ruling Morena party and its allies remain on track to win a comprehensive victory in the June 6 Chamber of Deputies election, according to predictions based on the latest “poll of polls” collated by the website Oraculus.
It predicts that Morena will win 44%, or 220, of the 500 seats in the lower house of federal Congress and that its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), will each win around 9%, or 43 and 45, respectively.
If that occurs, the Morena-PT-PVEM alliance will win 308 of the 500 seats, 300 of which are elected directly and 200 by proportional representation. That would give the coalition a strong majority in the lower house but not the two-thirds majority needed to approve constitutional changes.
Morena and its allies, which include the Social Encounter Party (PES), currently hold 334 lower house seats but Oraculus predicts that the PES – which currently occupies 20 seats – won’t win any seats at the June 6 election.
Oraculus predicts that the three-party coalition consisting of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) will win a combined 37% of seats.
It predicts that 14% will go to the PRI, 17% to the PAN and 6% to the PRD. It anticipates that the alliance will win a total of 180 seats in the 500-seat chamber and that the other 12 seats will go to the Citizens Movement party.
Oraculus’ latest predictions show that the PRI-PAN-PRD alliance has made up some ground since late last month. The website previously predicted that the Morena-PT-PVEM alliance would win 337 of the lower house seats and that the coalition of opposition parties would take 152.
Source: El Financiero (sp)
