MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile’s Piñera approval rating plummets to the lowest of any president since 1990

President Piñera heads “a government that does not work”

Early last week The Santiago Times reported that approval of President Sebastián Piñera had plummeted, according to a government evaluation survey by one of Chile’s leading polling firms, Adimark.

A second, much broader survey from the Centre of Public Studies (CEP), released Friday, confirms the trend and helps to put it in historical perspective.

According to the CEP survey, approval of Piñera fell from 44% in the last poll in November and December 2010 to 26% in June and July 2011, giving Piñera the lowest approval rating of any Chilean president since democratically-elected government was restored in 1990.

Previously, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, president from 1994 to 2000, held the lowest approval rating of 28 % in a 1999 survey.

“This is a government that does not work and a political system that is exhausted. We are facing the development of a political crisis and we must respond with more democracy, something that the government does not see; in fact, they are advancing in the opposite direction,” Carolina Tohá, leader of the centre-left Party for Democracy (PPD) opposition party, told local media.

Government spokesperson Andrés Chadwick told local media, “The government has already made it clear: We are listening to the voice of the people, and hearing it, we are changing and we are taking actions that will allow us to respond to their worries.”

The CEP poll puts additional pressure on the government to initiate reforms.

Piñera met with his political analysis committee for nine hours on Saturday, analyzing reform priorities. According to La Tercera, the president will emphasize the battles against inequality and consumer abuse in the near future.

Piñera also asked Minister Secretary General Cristián Larroulet to speed up the passage of electoral reforms to make registration automatic and voting voluntary. In the current system, registered voters must either vote or pay fine, creating a disincentive for Chileans to register.

It is not known if Piñera is also willing to consider elimination of Chile’s controversial “binomial majority” election system, a system implemented by former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The binomial majority elections system forces political parties to work together in coalitions and for 20 years has worked to assure disproportionate representation for rightist political parties, while excluding smaller political parties.

As in the Adimark poll, approval of Chile’s leading center-left opposition coalition, the Concertación, fell from 24% to 17%, while approval of Piñera’s rightist Coalición por el Cambio coalition fell from 41% to 24%.

When asked whether they identify with the Concertación, the Coalición por el Cambio, or the much smaller leftist Juntos Podemos Más coalition, more than half of Chileans responded “none of the above.”

“People are satisfied with their family life, their work, their friendships, their hobbies, the city that they live in,” but “people are not satisfied with the way the government is managing things,” said CEP researcher Carolina Segovia as the poll was publicly released.

“The evaluation is negative with respect to public life and this affects the executive branch, just as it affects the Concertación, the Coalición por el Cambio and the entire political class,” said Segovia.

Among public figures, former President Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) and Minister of Public Works Laurence Golborne were evaluated much more positively than any other figure.

Bachelet, a potential presidential candidate for the Concertación in the upcoming 2013 elections, received an evaluation of “good” or “very good” from 79% of those who know of her. 71% gave Golborne similar evaluations.

Public opinion of Golborne has remained high since ‘the 33’ miners were rescued after 69 days underground, under his watch as Minister of Mining. No other public figure was above 46%.

By Benjamin Schneider - The Santiago Times