Despite the government spending more and more on communication, the image of Presidenta Laura Chinchilla continues to “plummet” (en picada).
Between 2010 and 2013 the government has increased its spending by ¢684 million colones to promote the image of the Laura Chinchilla and her government. Despite the bill, the Presidenta’s images continues to fall, according to national surveys.
In 2010, ¢1.125 billion colones, representing 8.58% of the government’s budget, was spent on “communications”. In 2011, the spending increased to ¢1.136 billion and in 2012 to ¢1.193 billion. For this year, 2013, ¢1.809 billion colones or 11.65% of the budget has been earmarked for improving the image of Laura Chinchilla and her government.
Despite the increase in spending, polls results show Costa Ricans have a poor image of their Presidenta.
A 2011 poll by Unimer paid for La Nacion showed in September of that year that 29% of the people saw the Presidenta’s performance as “bad” or “very bad” while in June of that year it had been 25%.
In early 2012, the negative rating had risen to 44% and reached 58% by mid year, meanwhile the approval ratings plummted to a low of only 13% of the population saying the Presidenta is on the right track.
But the image of Presidenta Chinchilla is not only at home. A survey by Mitofsky Consultants show that Costa Rica’s president had the worst rating among 20 American presidents.
