Unpopular Presidencies

How come the Dominican Republic gets in but Haiti doesn't? They share an island. Jared Diamond's chapter on the two paths of Hispaniola in 'Collapse' was very interesting.

Could it be that the Haitian independence was really a slave revolt that ended up in destroying white colonial culture, while the Dominican independence was a revolution made in many stages -against Spain, against Haiti, against the US, against dictator Trujillo- and dominated by white and mulatto liberals?

In any case, the Dominican Republic has had its good share of political chaos during its history. It only ended in the late 1970s.

Yeah, including an invasion by Lyndon Johnson . . .

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I thought about this thread recently when i was listening to a pundit on the CBC who was describing the fortunes of Stephen Harper and the Tories. I had known their numbers were slipping in the spring, but hadn't been paying attention since then. According to this joker, the Tories approval rating dropped to 30%, and has stayed there all summer--that's not even the percentage of Tories in Canada. Something surely is amiss. He attributed it (reasonably, in my opinion) to scandals involving arrogant Tories living the high life at taxpayer expense, and particularly to the scandals in the Senate. Harper and the Tories got elected in the first place in January, 2006 by campaigning against the the excesses and arrogance of the Liberals. Harper also promised to pass legislation to have Senators elected, rather than appointed. He hasn't done that, and it has become a glaringly failure in light of the expense scandals of Tories in the Senate.

It's definitely linked to political history/culture

Here's the chapter
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=UCq57jmkrzIC&pg=PT13&lpg=PT13&dq=jared+diamond+collapse+haiti+dominican+republic&source=bl&ots=jotkRmfkO6&sig=5QEkOJSLB89j9lLo53qnYJOKsSg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qJhdUqmpK4eziQfpy4DYAQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAzgU#v=onepage&q=jared%20diamond%20collapse%20haiti%20dominican%20republic&f=false

Plenty of inter webs people take shots at him for any number of reasons from geographic determinism to political incorrectness, but my recollection was that brutal dictatorship in the Dominican Republic for some reason managed the natural environment much better and many of haiti's problems stem from that difference.

But that's by-the-by, my question was why president Michel Martelly wasn't on your list?

Because I don't know of a reputed pollster with data on Haiti's presidential aprooval rates.

Recent measurements & big swings.

Danilo Medina (Dominican Rep.) 90% ( +1 since last measurement)
Rafael Correa (Ecuador) 75% (-15)
Horacio Cartes (Paraguay) 74% (new)
Evo Morales (Bolivia) 68% (+9)
Mauricio Funes (El Salvador) 67% (+3) outgoing
Ricardo Martinelli (Panama) 65% (-4)
Otto Pérez (Guatemala) 56% (+8)
Enrique Peña Nieto (Mexico) 50% (-6)
Sebastián Piñera (Chile) 50% (+14) outgoing
Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) 50% (+25)
Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) 49% (-17)
José Mujica (Uruguay) 47% (+2)
Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela) 47% (-1)
Stephen Harper (Canada) 44% (+18)
Barack Obama (USA ) 43% (-1)
Djilma Roussef (Brasil) 38% (+1)
Porfirio Lobo (Honduras) 38% (+6)
Cristina Fernández (Argentina) 25% (-1)
Ollanta Humala (Peru) 24% (-8)
Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica) 16% (+7)

Thanks fb, these are always interesting. I thought I read somewhere that Ortega was still in a pretty strong position and that Juan Manuel Santos might swing back if the FARC negotiations complete successfully.

Both Ortega and Santos have had enormous swings, going down, up and down again.
Santos actually doubled his approval ratings, from 25 to 50.

What strikes me as odd is Maduro's resiliency.

It's also interesting to notice that favorites of the West (like Mujica for the European left, Peña Nieto for the stablishment or Humala, praised for the so-called Peruvian miracle) don't do as well, in an average, as the left-wing populists (except for Cristina Fernández, a member of the latter group, who is very unpopular).

I have yet to meet a mexican fan of Peña Nieto.

Not surprising about Fernandez with Argentina heading toward a currency deja vu moment.

Maduro's stability is interesting is that it signifies (to me) a deep, but stable, split between the traditional vested interests and those that wanted a bigger (or fairer) share of the pie. What little coverage we get of Venezuela is split between either the cautious praise of Chavez' legacy of steps to more even income redistribution, or an apparent descent into lawlessness and chaos.

If I was polled, I'd answer I approve Peña Nieto. But not heartwarmingly.

Maduro is heading Venezuela towards a failed State, IMHO.

OK, a new wave of measurements:

Danilo Medina (Dominican Rep.) 89% ( -1% since last measurement)
Juan Carlos Varela (Panama) 65% (new)
Rafael Correa (Ecuador) 72% (-3)
Evo Morales (Bolivia) 72% (+4)
Juan Orlando Hernández (Honduras) 66% (new)
Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) 60% (+11)
José Mujica (Uruguay) 52% (+5)
Horacio Cartes (Paraguay) 51% (-23)
Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) 50% (=)
Michelle Bachelet (Chile) 49% (returning)
Enrique Peña Nieto (Mexico) 47% (-3)
Barack Obama (USA ) 41% (-2)
Salvador Sánchez Cerén (El Salvador) 40% (new)
Luis Guillermo Solís (Costa Rica) 39% (new)
Djilma Roussef (Brasil) 37% (-1)
Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela) 36% (-11)
Cristina Fernández (Argentina) 32% (+7)
Ollanta Humala (Peru) 31% (+7)
Stephen Harper (Canada) 29% (-15)

Wow anyone above and including Ortega has number any western democracy would dream about.

Mujica continues his slow climb up the ratings.

Maduro's honeymoon is over

Will Roussef win the presidential runoff

and

Harper gets what he deserves, I wonder if he'll take a leaf out of his mate Tony Abbott's (Australia 40%) playbook, and play the fear card and staunch the bleeding by being 'tough on terrorists'. It's my impression that Canadians ain't as wilfully stupid as Australians.

Why Ortega regained popularity beats me. I don't understand.

Djilma may very well lose, only a hard-campaigning -and still very popular- Lula can save her... perhaps.

Actually, GW Bush's approval rating when he left office was 24%. Before that period,

Nine months, and some very big falldowns later... :

Danilo Medina (Dominican Rep.) 89% ( +0% since last measurement)
Evo Morales (Bolivia) 75% (+3)
Juan Carlos Varela (Panama) 63% (-2)
Rafael Correa (Ecuador) 61% (-11)
Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) 57% (-3)
Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay) 52% (returning)
Salvador Sánchez Cerén (El Salvador) 47% (+7)
Juan Orlando Hernández (Honduras) 47% (-19)
Raúl Castro (Cuba) 47% (first time measured)
Barack Obama (USA ) 46% (+5)
Cristina Fernández (Argentina) 40% (+8)
Enrique Peña Nieto (Mexico) 39% (-8)
Stephen Harper (Canada) 32% (+3)
Otto Pérez (Guatemala) 30% (-16% in 15 months)
Michelle Bachelet (Chile) 29% (-20)
Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) 28% (-22)
Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela) 26% (-10)
Horacio Cartes (Paraguay) 25% (-26)
Luis Guillermo Solís (Costa Rica) 20% (-19)
Ollanta Humala (Peru) 17% (-17)
Djilma Roussef (Brasil) 10% (-27)

Thanks again for the update - sometimes it's the only thing I see of South American politics - I didn't even know Mujica's term had finished. Sniff.

Harper having a dead cat bounce?
Obama loving being a lame duck?
As predicted Djilma struggling.
Columbia over the optimism of the FARC peace deals?
What's happening in the bottom 8 - they are big drops - is it the economy, stupid?

For Djilma and Bachelet it is certainly the economy.
For Santos, I believe it is fear from his right that he's giving up too much to the FARC.
And, of course, Maduro is a total mess.
What strikes me as absurd is Humala. Perú's economy is booming, there is no important social unrest... but of course Peruvians tend to be the stiffest presidential qualificators.


Oh, and count me in as part of Mexico's Peña Nieto 8 percent fall.

Is that, at least partly, because of his administration's handling of the student murders and El Chapo's escape?

It's a bit of everything.
El Chapo's escape only makes it worse.