President Duque Favorability Rating Soars on Coronavirus-Crisis, but Most Now Favor Terminating Quarantine on April 27

Until the Coronavirus crisis appeared, Colombia President Ivan Duque generally had difficulty connecting with voters and had slipped in popularity polls — initially because of a prior failure to build a broader, effective coalition in the multi-party Colombian Congress.

But that’s all changed since Duque successfully broadened his Congress base late last year – and even more so now, because of what most people view as a timely, balanced, responsible and respectful response to the Coronavirus crisis.

According to the just-issued EcoAnalytica/Guarumo poll of eligible voters in Colombia (see: https://s3.amazonaws.com/Guarumo/ecoanalitica/2020_04_Percepcion_Pais.pdf), Duque’s favorability ranking hit 63.2% this month, while Medellin Mayor Daniel Quintero also now enjoys a similarly favorable 65.3% ranking.

Former M-19 guerilla, now-Senator Gustavo Petro – who lost in a landslide to President Duque in the 2018 presidential election – now has the worst ranking among all national politicians at 63.3% unfavorability. Only 27.8% now give the bombastic, incendiary Petro a “favorable” ranking — worse than his nemesis, former President, now-Senator Alvaro Uribe (40% favorable, 52% unfavorable).

While Duque has won overwhelming praise from the voting population over his handling of the Coranavirus crisis, the poll shows that Colombian voters are nevertheless increasingly worried about what’s going to happen to their jobs.

In total, 74.5% have endorsed Duque’s handling of the Coronavirus crisis — and 81.5% endorsed the mandatory quarantine.

However: Only 33.5% of those polled now favor continuation of the Coronavirus quarantine beyond April 27, with 45.8% favoring termination of the quarantine after April 27.

Rationale: employment is now the number-one worry, at 32.4% of those polled, with the possibility of Coronavirus infection only the second-greatest worry, at 23.4%, the poll shows.

“Health” concerns were cited by another 10.7%, followed by “the economy” at 6.2%” and “corruption,” also at 6.2% in the descending list of worries.

“Education” was the sixth-most worry, at 4.5%, followed by “security” at 3.4%. “Peace” was next at 2.3%, followed by “the environment,” in eighth-place (1.6%), while “justice” came-in ninth place (1.4%), the polling shows.