President Leonel Fernandez comes second in the ratings for regional presidential job performance for the first semester of 2005, according to a CID-Gallup Latin American poll. President Antonio Saca of El Salvador has the highest rating with 62% followed by Fernandez with 48%. Others in Central America are Abel Pacheco of Costa Rica with 40%, Ricardo Maduro of Honduras with 32%, Enrique Bolanos of Nicaragua, Martin Torrijos of Panama with 26% and Oscar Berger of Guatemala with 16%. This is one of the results from the latest public opinion surveys conducted by CID Gallup in seven countries in the region during the first semester of 2005. At least 1,200 adults were polled by telephone in the DR.
The polling company comments that Fernandez is in a honeymoon situation “because like Saca, he is also relatively new to the job.” Nevertheless, it points out that Fernandez’s popularity is plummeting daily. According to CID-Gallup, “even though the majority of respondents in the DR still have a favorable view of Fernandez’s performance, his evaluation index fell by 30 percentage points between December 2004 and April 2005.” The poll attributes the decline “in part to his inability to solve the country’s economic problems and failing to address the lack of electricity supply in the DR.”
http://www.cidgallup.com/cgi-bin/noticias.fwx?la=en