MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner still popular despite Argentine crime wave.

A crime wave has Argentines clamouring for relief, but does not appear to have eroded the popularity of President Nestor Kirchner, according to a poll whose release Monday coincided with news of another sensational murder.

Although the chief executive himself has said that his "supposed honeymoon with the people" ended some time ago, the new opinion survey showed his approval rating at 76.7 percent.

Kirchner, who took office last May, was one of the few politicians not criticized during recent mass street protests held throughout the country in the wake of the kidnapping and brutal murder of a 23-year-old.

The case of Axel Blumberg, who was found dead of a bullet wound to the head on March 23, six days after he was abducted, spurred a crusade against crime that has already moved lawmakers to stiffen sentences in the case of certain offences.

In Buenos Aires alone, more than 130,000 people marched on April 1 in response to a call by Axel's father, Juan Carlos Blumberg, a textile merchant who has taken the lead in demanding improved public safety.

But according to the poll published Monday in the daily La Nacion, 86 percent of respondents thought the demonstration was not directed against the president but against crime.

Some 11 percent of the 800 people polled nationwide by the Opinion Publico Servicios y Mercados survey firm said they thought the march was in reaction to Blumberg's murder and only 0.9 percent said the protest was directed at the president.

Yet just as the government was announcing Monday that the gang behind Axel's death had been "totally deactivated," a 22-year-old French exchange student was found murdered in her Buenos Aires apartment.

Perrine Bermond, who lived alone, had been stabbed in the neck, and the police found no evidence of robbery. The building has a security guard posted 24-hours-a-day.

The increase in crime is one of Argentina's principal concerns, and official statistics indicate that reported kidnappings for ransom rose 105 percent between 2001 and 2003.

During his slightly more than 10 months in office, Kirchner has implemented several measures designed to fight corruption within the security forces, whose members have been implicated in numerous crimes, including Blumberg's kidnapping and murder. Twelve people have been arrested in the Blumberg case, including federal police official Daniel Graviña, who was detained last Thursday and accused of conducting a cover up.

Commenting on the actions of investigators in the Blumberg case, Cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez insisted that "if there are more federal police involved, they should answer for their actions." For his part, Axel's father said "a lot of people are still implicated" in his son's murder and that "federal police are mixed up in a lot of businesses," as are provincial police in Buenos Aires, where his son was kidnapped and found dead. Juan Carlos Blumberg told La Red radio that he had gathered more than 1.8 million signatures on a petition supporting harsher sentences.

One of the measures proposed increasing sentences for crimes committed with firearms and was passed last week by both houses of Congress, which promised to discuss all the points included in Blumberg's petition.