Declining Ratings for Mexico's President Pena Nieto, Ruling Party, Military Danielle Cuddington and Richard Wike - Pew Research Center
go to original August 27, 2015

Three years after being elected president, Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto is increasingly unpopular. Following a year plagued by scandal and controversy, his ratings have fallen, and Mexicans have grown disappointed with key elements of his ambitious agenda.

A new Pew Research Center survey of Mexico finds 44% of the public expressing a favorable view of Peña Nieto, down from 51% in 2014.

Moreover, his ratings on specific issues have dropped sharply. Last year, 55% approved of how Peña Nieto was handling education. Education reform is a cornerstone of his presidency that has met with intense opposition from the country’s powerful teachers unions. However, this year just 43% give him a favorable review on this issue.

Only 35% of Mexicans now think Peña Nieto is doing a good job of managing the country’s ongoing battle against organized crime and drug gangs, compared with 53% in 2014. Just 39% say the government is making progress against drug traffickers, down from 45% a year ago (and the survey was conducted before the prison escape of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, in July).

Just 34% of Mexicans say their economy is in good shape – a decline of 6 percentage points since last year. And here again, Peña Nieto gets poor marks, with just 30% approving of how he is dealing with the economy, compared with an already low 37% in 2014.

And while Peña Nieto has tried to advance new anti-corruption measures in recent months, his administration has also been shaken by scandals over the course of the past year, including allegations of impropriety surrounding a real estate deal involving his wife and a major government contractor. Just 27% now approve of how the president is dealing with corruption, down 15 points from a year ago.

Ratings for Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have also declined (from 47% favorable in 2014 to 38% now). However, the PRI remains more popular than two of its biggest rivals. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) is viewed positively by just 29%, while the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) gets even lower marks (23% favorable).

The Mexican military, which is heavily involved in the country’s fight against drug cartels, receives mostly positive reviews, though its image has also declined over the past year. In 2014, 75% said the military was having a good influence on the nation; today, 61% hold this view. Meanwhile, ratings for the already unpopular police have slipped even further (34% good influence in 2014, 27% now).

These are among the key findings from the latest survey in Mexico by the Pew Research Center, which is based on face-to-face interviews conducted from April 7 to 19, 2015, among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 randomly selected adults from across the country.

Read the rest at Pew Research Center

Related: Mexicans Are Outraged, But Not Surprised, at the Corruption Scandal That's Rocking Their President's Office (VICE News)

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