Hoy newspaper’s front-page story highlights the results of a poll conducted by the firm Sigma Dos for the Consorcio Iberoamericano de Empresas de Investigacion de Mercados y Asesoramiento (CIMA) on the performance of Latin American heads of state. Some 6,094 persons were surveyed in 14 regional countries from August to September.
On a country per country basis, President Hipolito Mejia of the Dominican Republic has the lowest approval rating for his performance as President by his compatriots. The citizens of Argentina ranked their new President the highest, with an 80% acceptance rate. In descending order, the poll listed the head of government of Colombia in second place (75%), followed by Chile (49%), Ecuador (38%), Mexico and Brazil (35%), Puerto Rico (33%), Panama 15%, Venezuela (10%), Bolivia and Uruguay (9%), Peru (7%) and the Dominican Republic (6%).
The pollsters asked citizens of voting age whether the President’s work performance was “very good”, “good”, “neither good nor bad”, “bad” or “very bad”. Of those questioned in the DR, 1% said the performance of President Mejia was very good, 5% said it was good, 15% said it was neither good nor bad, 33% described it as bad and 47% said it was very bad.
The most pressing problem for 34% of Dominicans is the economy, followed by corruption (33%), and unemployment (27%).
According to the survey, 92% of those polled perceive the DR to be on the wrong track, up from 79% who felt this way when polled by the same company in February.
President Mejia received an 85% disapproval rate for his administration, while 14% approved his government and 1% said they did not have an opinion.