Backing for Mexico president hits new low, two years after election: poll

July 1, 2020

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Support for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador slipped to a new low in June as discontent mounted over his management of the economy and security, two years after he won office, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

According to the June survey of 820 respondents by Mexican newspaper El Financiero, the leftist leader’s approval rating slipped to a low of 56% from 60% in May.

That was well down from a peak of 83% scaled in February last year, soon after Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018, pledging to bring down record levels of violence and lift growth in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

Instead, Mexico slipped into a moderate recession last year and homicides have risen higher still on Lopez Obrador’s watch. The coronavirus pandemic has hit Mexico hard, and forecasters expect the economy to shrink by 10% or more this year.

Two years since his landslide election victory in July 2018, some 51% of respondents polled said Lopez Obrador was meeting his pledges, while 44% said he was not.

Assessments of his performance on the economy, security and tackling poverty were far more negative. Fully 65% of those polled said he was doing poorly on the economy with only 20% of the opposite view. On poverty, the negative scores outweighed the positive by 60% to 22%, and on security it was 63% against Lopez Obrador versus 23% in favor.

Still, Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday he is satisfied with his administration’s work and optimistic for the future.

“The results are good, in spite of everything,” he told reporters at his daily news conference.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Dave Graham; Editing by Leslie Adler)