MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mrs. Kirchner with a sustained negative rating of 50%

No kisses for Cristina from Argentine public opinion

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has a negative image rating of 50.4% and a positive one of only 19.2%, according to the results of an opinion poll conducted by the Giacobbe & Asociados consultancy which were released recently.

According to Jorge Giacobbe it will be "very difficult" for the president to recover from this situation and recover the trust of the Argentine people. He also said "Last month was similar, she's holding steady on a 50% negative versus a 19% positive image rating." However the same poll gave Vice-President Julio Cobos a 67.9% positive image rating and a negative rating of only 9.8%, figures Giacobbe described as being "very unlikely to be repeated" and all the more remarkable when his extremely low profile in the early days of the CFK presidency is taken into consideration. In comments made to Radio Continental Giacobbe was pessimistic about the possibility of the Argentine president turning the tide of her unpopularity. "It's very difficult to change what's fixed if what's fixed is negative. A negative image reflects a lack of trust and when one starts to mistrust another person, it's very difficult to reconstruct the relationship and this is all the truer in the case of a political leader". Turning to Vice-President Cobos Giacobbe said: "He was practically unknown to the public, he had a very low rate of name recognition" but then, as a result of his use of his casting vote in the Senate to defeat the government's export duty bill, his popularity "did more than just rise, it skyrocketed" to a level that would have been impossible for him to attain otherwise. The post of Argentine vice president is basically ceremonial as head of the Senate. He only cast a vote when there's a tie, and is expected to follow Executive instructions. Cobos was part of the winning ticket by bringing to the ruling coalition a dissident wing of the main opposition party known as the Radicales K. But on the key issue of the farm export taxes and the four months stand off with farmers he voted against Mrs Kirchner's initiative for which he was branded "Judas" and "traitor". (BAH).-