(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Panamanians are almost evenly divided on their assessment of their president’s performance, according to a poll by Dichter & Neira released by TVN Noticias and Panamá América. 49.8 per cent of respondents think Martín Torrijos has done a good or excellent job as head of state so far, while 45.3 per cent think his work has been bad or very bad.

The positive rating of Torrijos increased by 1.6 points since July, while his negative rating dropped by 4.6 points.

Torrijos—the son of Omar Torrijos, an army general who ruled Panama from 1968 to 1981—won the May 2004 presidential election as a candidate for the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) with 47.44 per cent of the vote.

In 1999, Panama regained full control of the Panama Canal, the source of 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In October 2006, Panamanian voters supported the canal’s $5.25 billion U.S. expansion plan—which would add a parallel set of locks to allow giant cargo ships to pass through the waterway—in a nationwide referendum.

On Aug. 20, Panamanian labour minister Luis Pérez assured that the Torrijos government has created a greater number of jobs that the previous administration, declaring, "The numbers show that from September 1999 to June 2003, the period of [former president Mirella] Moscoso, there were 419,560 new contracts signed, while from September 2004 to June 2008, the term of Torrijos, there have been 817,174 new registered jobs."

Polling Data

How would you rate the performance of Martín Torrijos as president?

Source: Dichter & Neira / TVN Noticias / Panamá América
Methodology: Interviews with 1,200 Panamanian adults, conducted from Aug. 15 to Aug. 17, 2008. Margin of error is 2.9 per cent.

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