http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...opularity.html

Mexican president remains popular a month before elections to replace him


ASSOCIATED PRESS

10:37 a.m. June 1, 2006

MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Vicente Fox's popularity rating remains high just a month before the election, according to a poll published Thursday.
The survey in the daily newspaper Reforma showed that 64 percent of those questioned approved the way Fox is running the country – just 1 percentage point less than in a poll taken in 2001, only months after he assumed office.

On a scale of 1 to 10, poll respondents gave Fox a 6.8, which presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar claimed is one of the highest for a Latin American president nearing the end of his term.
Thursday's poll also showed, however, that only 50 percent believed Fox when he addressed the nation to explain his programs, while 47 percent said they did not.

The poll was conducted May 19-21 with 2,099 adults across the country, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Fox, of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, will hand over power on Dec. 1 to the winner of the July 2 election.

The race is being closely fought, with PAN candidate Felipe Calderon running neck-and-neck with former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party.

Fox was the first candidate to wrest the presidency away from the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which governed Mexico for 71 years without interruption. PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo is running third in this year's election.