(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Public backing for Panamanian president Martín Torrijos has remained stable this month, according to a poll by Dichter & Neira published in La Prensa. 51.1 per cent of respondents say Torrijos has done a good or excellent job in leading the country, practically unchanged since February.

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 Apr. 18, Torrijos urged political parties in Latin America to focus all their efforts towards alleviating social inequalities and poverty, saying, "The challenge of political groups lies not only in the system, but in establishing new objectives and a vision in favour of fairness, social justice and the equality of our countries to recover the confidence of our citizens."

Polling Data

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

Source: Dichter & Neira / La Prensa
Methodology: Interviews with 1,217 Panamanian adults, conducted from Apr. 11 to Apr. 13, 2008. Margin of error is 2.9 per cent.

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