Presidents approval ratings plummet: survey

The firing of Juan Carlos Valera from his role as Foreign Minister, and the break up of the governing alliance, has sent President Ricardo Martinelli’s approval ratings plummeting.

A Unimer survey, commissioned by La Prensa,  came after the fracturing of the alliance with the Panamenista  Party.

There was a 12% fall in approval rating and those who thought his job rating was “bad” or “very bad” jumped eight percentage points.

Of the 600 respondents, 51.6% (310) said that the work of Martinelli has been "excellent" or "good", contrasting  with the 63.9% recorded in May in a similar telephone survey. That is, a 12% decline.

The negative view of the president's performance  gained strength with  41.8% (250 people) describing Martinelli’s performance as "bad" or "very bad". That’s an increase of  eight percentage points, over the May survey when those who felt that the President's management was poor or very poor measured  only 33.3% .

The survey was carried out  by phone, Wednesday August 31 and Thursday September 1,  with a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.

 It came after  Martinelli decided to remove Juan Carlos Varela from  his post as Foreign Minister. Varela is also the leader of the Panamenista Party  and Vice President.

The dismissal provoked a cascade of resignations, including Housing Minister Carlos Duboy, and Economy and Finance Minister Alberto Vallarino. It also produced  the announcement that the Panamenistas would  go into opposition in the National Assembly.

Varela has said that  in opposition he will practice  "responsibly” and from his post as vice president praise good efforts and criticize all evil ones.