Politics: Signs of a more nuanced view of AMLO
A new nationwide poll taken by GEA-ISA shows a five-point drop in public approval of the job President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the latest sign of a duality we first detected in June between the President’s generally high approval ratings and slippage in enthusiasm for some aspects of the current government’s achievements to date or lack thereof, and what citizens expect it to deliver going forward.
AMLO continues to command considerable support on the strength of certain personal qualities and highly popular social policies.
Despite the predominance of evidence that the economy is just barely managing to grow, the percentage of respondents who are bullish regarding the economy was unchanged from June, and more tellingly, the majority who describe the state of their household economies as good or fair climbed to 86%. That seeming contradiction can be explained primarily by the extent to which the new government successfully pushed for a major minimum wage hike that has also contributed to higher wage settlements throughout much of the economy. The country’s wage mass (the full compensation paid to all workers) had grown around 5% by the end of June, a clear sign of the extent to which people have yet to personally perceive the broader stalling of the economy.
While there had been considerable discontent in many quarters over the president’s decision to cancel previously existing anti-poverty and other types of cash-transfer programs, a growing percentage of people are starting to benefit from the programs AMLO has introduced to replace them. The percentage of the population that reports benefiting from the new social programs has grown by 13 points, from 33% in March to 46% in September. In fact, we suspect that the five-point erosion of presidential approval largely reflects those who feel they have lost out from this focus on replacing public policies social programs.
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