In office for less than three months, Lenin Moreno’s popularity is at a record high of 85%

Since political polling began in Ecuador in the 1970s, no sitting president has been more popular than Lenin Moreno. That is the conclusion of Guayaquil university graduate student Alexandra Ledesma.

President Lenin Moreno

Ledesma participated in a recent survey by Perfiles de Opinion that gave Moreno an 84.86 percent good or excellent rating at the two-month mark of his presidency. “This is really incredible considering how critical Ecuadorians have been of their presidents” she said. “Looking back almost 50 years, you won’t see numbers this high for any president at any time during his term.”

According to Ledesma, a second poll currently being conducted by Cedatos, will probably yield similar results. “In their June poll, the president had a 66% approval rating, which is very high, but I believe the new one will be even higher, maybe 80% or more.”

By historic standards, former president Rafael Correa had relatively high ratings when he left office, Ledesma says. “His positive ratings were 39.5 percent and 42 percent in the last polls of his term,” she says. “Even at less than 50%, you have to go back more than 20 years to find similar numbers at the end of a presidency.”

Ledesma says that the three elected presidents who preceded Correa had popularity numbers of less than 15% when the left office.

Ledesma, a student at the University of Guayaquil, credits Moreno non-confrontational style of governing and his “dialogs” with former opponents as one reason for his high popularity. “People are tired of confrontation and bitterness,” she says. “They like his discussions with mayors who are not in his political party and his early decisions, like the one changing the management of government newspapers and tv stations.”