Monday, February 08, 2010

Support for Spanish Government falling

Latest polls indicate that PSOE is losing popularity amongst voters

Two new opinion polls published yesterday by two of Spain’s largest daily newspapers show that PSOE is losing popularity amongst voters. According to the poll carried out by Metroscopia for EL País PSOE’s electoral base has plummeted due to the lack of confidence in the government’s ability to deal with the recession.

According to this poll, the PP is now leading PSOE by 6 points which is much more than the 2.5 lead it enjoyed in January this year. It also found that 76% of those questioned for the poll were not confident in the abilities of the Spanish president, Jose Luis Zapatero, and nearly 80% believed that he took decisions ‘on the go’. Furthermore the first poll since the government’s announcement that it was going to reform retirement laws saw its support fall to 37.5% which is 6 points less than in the general elections last year. It also discovered that voters were pessimistic about Spain’s political and economic future.

These results are worrying for the government because the PP’s lead in the polls is six times more than it was in 1996 when José María Aznar won the elections and the PP took power for the first time. The opinion poll for the El País shows that the PP’s estimated vote is now 43.4%.

Spain’s European presidency has not turned out to be the tonic that PSOE was hoping for and Zapatero now needs to look for other ways of boosting his party’s popularity before the elections in Catalonia this autumn and the local and regional elections in 2011. However, the outlook for the government is not good with 64% of those questioned disapproving of the government’s plicies which is 12% more in the space of just one month. In addition 39% of PSOE voters are critical of the government.

The other opinion poll by Sigma Dos for El Mundo carried out following the government’s announcement that it was planning to raise the age of retirement to 67 showed that if a general election was held today the PP would win the election with a 5.8% lead over the socialists.

According to this survey, the leader of the PP, Mariano Rajoy, is now more popular than Zapatero. According to this poll Rajoy was given 4.21 out of 10 while Zapatero only got 4.1 out of 10. However, the most popular leader amongst those questioned was Rosa Díez who was given 4.38 out of 10.

The poll also showed that 51.1% of voters were in favour of a general election now. This opinion was held mainly by 86.7% of PP supporters while just 19.3% of PSOE supporters wanted a general election straight away. As far as changes in the Government are concerned, a high 65.8% said they were in favour of Zapatero doing a cabinet reshuffle.
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posted by Euroresidentes at 10:54 AM

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