MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine gov. positive rating drops to new low: 19.4%

A public opinion poll released this week in Argentina gave a positive image rating of only 19.4% to the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, while 55.8% of respondents took a negative view.

The provinces of Córdoba, San Luis, Corrientes, Santa Fe, La Rioja, Chaco and Entre Ríos gave the Argentine government the lowest ratings. The survey was carried out by Datamática consultancy from Buenos Aires between May 14 and 20 in 77 cities throughout Argentina. The Kirchner administration faces a serious challenge from farmers that have been protesting for almost three months over taxing policy, while in urban areas the ravage of inflation has become the main concern as well as the insufficient supply of energy. Regarding provincial governments the San Juan governor José Luis Gioja was named as the politician with the highest positive image rating. Gioja weighed in with a positive image rating of 78.1%, followed by Chubut province governor Mario Das Neves with 77.9%, Santiago de Estero province governor Gerardo Zamora with 73.2%, and in fourth place Santa Fe province Socialist governor Hermes Binner with 66.5%. The two provincial governors with the strongest growth in their positive image rating in the last 60 days were Hermes Binner in Santa Fe province (up 14%) and Juan Manuel Urtubey in Salta province (up 10 percentage points to 54.6% ranked 8th overall). Another more specific poll referred to Argentine consumers' confidence and retail sales, both of which showed a significant slowdown. According to the Argentine Medium Companies Confederation, CAME, retail sales in May 2008 dropped 5.1% compared to the same month a year ago and the Consumer Confidence Index, from the Mercado Foundation, indicates a 5.4% decrease in May compared to April 2008. Savers' confidence index was also down 4.1%. Mercado Foundation families' confidence index also showed the same tendency contracting 5.2% in May and 7.9% compared to May 2007. Argentina's Chamber of Commerce monthly poll among members indicates that last April the number of retailers who expected to see their sales increase in the near future dropped to 41.9%. In March the same index was 61.2%. Even the discredited Nacional Statistics and Census Institute (Indec) and its controversial indexes show the same slowing down tendency. Even when supermarket April sales, according to Indec, increased 25.4% compared to a year ago, they actually dropped 0.7% from March 2008.