The Survey Signs/The Counter This week brings back the issue of security as the focus of greatest concern among citizens, a citizen interest possibly encouraged by the kidnapping and murder of the Venezuelan military officer asylum in the country, Ronald Ojeda.
The notorious initial disorientation of the Government in the face of the event, and the pressure from public opinion to receive a plausible explanation of what happened, evidenced the lack of police and political intelligence in the country, a topic that was consulted in the survey.
When asked if they consider an intelligence law essential to address crime and insecurity issues, 71.2% of those surveyed answered Yes; 20.1% say No, and 8.7% say they don’t know.
When asked if the law being processed requires extreme urgency, 70.6% of those surveyed answered Yes; 16.2% answered No, and 13.2% said they Don’t Know.
And when asked how important it is to have an Intelligence Law to improve security in the country, 60.2% respond that it is Very Important; 8% that is Somewhat Important; 12.5% that is unimportant; 11.4% respond that Very Little or Not at all Important and 5.1% respond that They Don’t Know.
Regarding whether the law pursues advertising purposes rather than being a real help regarding security issues, 62.8% respond that it is a “real help”, while 20.4% say that it has “More advertising purposes” , and 16.8% say Don’t Know.
What can be seen from the previous figures is that according to those surveyed, a law is urgently required. That this would help improve things. On the contrary, not having intelligence, or not using what one has in an active way, is seen as negative, which is perceived as a direct responsibility of the authorities in office.
Furthermore, those surveyed are mostly in favor of an urgent procedure for the current law under discussion in Congress, as a positive step towards the problem, and whose promotion also corresponds to the Government.
Criticism of parity policies
Every March 8 seems like a good time to analyze progress in gender equality. On this occasion, the Survey Signs/The Counter asked two questions related to women’s rights: The first is “do you think that the gender equality policies promoted by the government have had a practical effect on improving women’s remuneration?” 75.3% responded No; 20.7% responded Yes; and 4% responded Don’t Know.
The same question was then asked, but only to women, and 86.1% of them said that it had had no practical effect on remuneration; 10.1% answered Yes, and 3.8 said Don’t Know.
The bias of more than 10 percentage points between the responses of men and women together and women alone evidently corresponds to a gender distortion in responses where men participate on a topic that applies only to women. Such figures are not a good gift from the Government for women in an 8M.
Political competition accelerates
Abruptly, electoral competition begins to take over the year’s narrow political calendar. The impression remains that although the knots of local competition (regional governments and municipalities) are not untied, the perspective of the parties is national, which in a certain sense minimizes the importance of the October elections.
The biggest news this week is that among the front runners which with few variations had remained stable in previous weeks, Carolina Tohá rises markedly and appears in fourth place, behind Axel Kaiser who surpasses Camila Vallejo. The notable thing about Kaiser is that she does not have great media exposure and that her growth is not necessarily due to a decrease in Kast, who also increases compared to the previous week.
Asked the question “Of the following people, who would be a good president for Chile?” (Slide 14) The first five places according to the responses are occupied by: Evelyn Matthei with 29.6%; José Antonio Kast follows with 15.5%; Carolina Tohá in third place with 11.9%; Axel Kaiser with 6.9% and Camila Vallejo with 6.7%. Bachelet is located further down with 5.7%, Orrego with 4.8% and Monsalve with 4.6%.
Contrasting the list with the option “who I would never vote for”, the highest rejection rate is Camila Vallejo 41.2%; followed by José Antonio Kast, 38.2%; Carolina Tohá 32.7%; Axel Kaiser 30.8%. Evelyn Matthei increases her rejection rate to 29.7% and is just one point below Michelle Bachelet who obtains 30.7% rejection.
On the right, where Evelyn Matthei appears as the best-looking candidate in presidential matters, no one inherits the political legacy that Sebastián Piñera would have left. When asked directly if Evelyn Matthei is the heir and natural successor to Sebastián Piñera’s legacy, only 12.8% said Yes; 28.5% thought that she is more than Piñera; 40.5% said that Piñera transcended her and 18.2% did not know or did not compare.
When only those surveyed who identify with the right were consulted, 70.2% point out that Sebastián Piñera had a leadership that goes much further than that of Evelyn Matthei, while only 5.3% say that she is his natural heir.
In terms of political identification, although the center predominates as an expectation, the country seems to be oriented towards the traditional three-thirds with a cleavage towards the right.
- The survey is a weekly national survey conducted by SignosAnalytics in collaboration with the electronic newspaper The counter between March 4 and 8, 2024. It corresponds to a probabilistic sample of 1,201 surveys, with a total sampling error of 2.8 percentage points. Applied to a panel with the support of AI instruments to improve its efficiency. It is intended to measure relevant current events and permanent political variables of national events on a weekly basis.
National Signs Survey by El Mostrador on Scribd