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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2007 
Mexicans Support Calderón's Drug War Strategy
 Reuters
| | Friday's poll gave Calderón high marks for honesty and leadership, although 62 percent of those polled said there was lingering resentment over the post-election conflict, when Mexico's top electoral court refused a vote recount. |
Mexico City – President Felipe Calderón's approval rating rose to a sturdy 65 percent in a newspaper poll Friday, and Mexicans resoundingly backed his use of the army to fight violent drug gangs.
An opinion poll published by the Reforma daily gave conservative Calderón 65 percent approval, up from 58 percent in its last poll in March, and in line with recent surveys elsewhere.
Asked to rate Calderón on a scale of one to 10, respondents gave him a score of 6.8, up from 6.6 in March, and 83 percent of those surveyed said they supported his deployment of troops to crack down on drug cartels behind some 1,000 killings so far this year.
Opposition lawmakers have criticized Calderón for using troops to fight drug gangs, citing reports of rights abuses by soldiers.
Calderón's high ratings are a far cry from six months ago when Mexico was bitterly divided over his razor-thin election victory over a leftist former Mexico City mayor.
Friday's poll gave Calderón high marks for honesty and leadership, although 62 percent of those polled said there was lingering resentment over the post-election conflict, when Mexico's top electoral court refused a vote recount.
Calderón's predecessor, Vicente Fox, regularly scored highly in polls even though most Mexicans thought he did a poor job on major issues like the economy and job creation.
Calderón, a former lawyer, has won praise for trying to curb rising tortilla prices and for his efforts to get Congress to pass a fiscal reform aimed at reducing Mexico's economic dependency on crude oil exports.
The survey questioned 1,515 people from May 18-20 and had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points. |
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