Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has an urban approval rating of 67%, a poll by Gallup poll showed Friday.
The approval rating measured by Gallup is considerably lower than the 82% measured by the National Consulting Center earlier this week, but the same as Gallup’s last month’s poll.
The poll showed that Colombians are increasingly concerned about the security situation in the country. When Santos took office in August 2007, 45% of Colombians were positive about the general security situation in the country. In the latest poll this has dropped to 13%. 74% says the security situation is getting worse.
In July 2010, a month before Santos took office, 56% of the urban dwellers said the situation regarding leftist guerrillas is getting better. In the latest poll, only 25% answered positively, while 52% said this is getting worse.
The poll showed a similar increase in concern over drug trafficking. In July 2010, 52% of Colombians thought Colombia was improving, while this has tumbled to 28% since then.
The approval of former President Alvaro Uribe keeps slipping; just after leaving office, the former head of state had an approval rating of 80%, which has since slipped to 63%.
The approval of U.S. President Barack Obama has slipped from 75% in September 2009 to 57% now. In the United States itself, Gallup set his approval rating at 42%. The United States as a country has a positive image among 57% of Colombia’s urban population, while 32% think negatively of the country’s north American ally.
The Gallup poll was held among 1,200 residents of Colombia’s five largest cities