Voters Give President Duque 60% Favorability Rating During Covid-19 Crisis; Medellin Mayor Tops All Politicians

The latest EcoAnalitica-Guarumo scientific survey of 2,122 voters across Colombia gives President Ivan Duque a 60% favorability ranking during the continuing Covid-19 crisis — a slight decline from 63% favorability in the last survey in April.

The July 8-11 survey of voters in all major and minor Colombia cities has a margin of error of 2.5%, according to the company.

Among Colombian politicians with a national image, Medellin Mayor Daniel Quintero has the highest favorability ranking, at 81%, while Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez has fallen to 68% favorability, down sharply from 78% in the April 2020 survey.

Left-wing demagogue Senator Gustavo Petro – who lost in a landslide to President Duque in the 2018 presidential election – now has a 61% unfavorability rating. Only 32% give the bombastic Petro a “favorable” ranking — worse than his nemesis, former President, now-Senator Alvaro Uribe (37.6% favorable, 53% unfavorable).

Coming in last in unfavorability is former Colombia Vice President German Vargas, a defender of the deeply flawed “peace” treaty between former President Juan Manuel Santos and the narco-communist FARC army, principally responsible for starting and then continuing a war that killed more than 300,000 mostly poor people, kidnapped for ransom thousands of others, converted vast territories into cocaine areas, and forcibly displaced some 6 million during its nearly 60-year reign of terror in the Colombian countryside.

Asked about favorites for the 2022 presidential elections, the biggest single voter category was “none,” at 32%. Former Medellin Mayor and Antioquia Governor Sergio Fajardo got the most votes for any named candidate, at 22.5%, followed by Petro at 17% and former Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez at 12.6%.

As in the April survey, the July survey found that most voters continue to worry more about their jobs than about the Covid-19 threat.

In total, 34.6% of voters said “employment” was their top worry, followed by “corruption” (27.6%), “Coronavirus” (13.6%), “the economy” (9.5%), “security” (4.5%), “education” (3.6%), “health” (3%), “the environment” (1.9%) and, in last place, “peace” (1.7%).

As for what they’re mainly doing for Covid-19 protection, 31.7% said they usually wear masks while 22.6% said they use social-distancing. Frequent hand-washing was reported by18.4%, while seeking tele-work (rather than commuting to a physical work-place) accounted for 13.2% of responses.