BOGOTA (Reuters) – the popularity of the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos remained stable at a high 67 percent at the beginning of the month, when the push for the death of the Chief of the FARC and the United States commercial Treaty was minimized by social issues, he revealed on Wednesday a poll.
Third measurement consecutive bimonthly signature Invamer Gallup poll opinion favourable of Saints remained at that level while the perception that the armed forces are capable of militarily defeating the guerrillas improved to 84 per cent, from a 76 per cent.
Survey, conducted in the first two weeks of the month, included the effect of the death of the maximum leader of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia (FARC), Alfonso Cano, on November 4 in fighting with the army, in what was considered the worst blow to the guerrillas in their nearly five decades of insurgency.
In the same survey, 66 percent of those polled approved the way as Santos is facing the guerrillas, which represented an increase of 23 percentage points since the poll prior.
“The blow to Cano took a great impact on the optimism of Colombians, what you should add the good performance of the economy,” said the general manager of Invamer Gallup, Jorge Londoño, who revealed that although most believe that security in general is getting worse, the figure tends to diminish with polls earlier.
With the theme of the fight against the guerrillas as one of the most sensitive, the death of Cano helped increase the optimism of the Colombians to a 46 percent, seven more than in the measurement points prior.
Londoño stressed that the President also maintained its popularity supported by signing a Treaty of free trade agreements (FTAS) with United States, considered vital to boost national economic growth of the country and in reducing to 10.2 per cent of urban unemployment and to 9.7 percent.
“This is related to an improvement in employment, and performance and the growth of businesses”, he assured Londoño.
However, he said that there are still doubts against the resolution of social problems linked to the health sector and that the image of Saints was affected by the strike of the students of the universities public.
“On two key issues are economy and public order, the President is going well, but you are social issues such as education, in which people are disapproving it,” said Londoño.
The Colombian economy grew 5.2% annual in the second quarter of 2011, driven by the oil and mining sectors and trade.
The survey included 1,200 interviews, between 3 and 10 November, in the cities of Bogotá, MedellÃn, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga, with a margin of error of +/-5 percentage points.
(Report of Luis Jaime Acosta); (Edited by Silene RamÃrez)
