MADRID: Public confidence in Spain’s royal family has plunged to a new low in the past year and a half since a corruption scandal engulfed King Juan Carlos’ son-in-law, a survey showed yesterday.
The study by the state polling institute CIS showed that the score for public confidence in the royals fell to 3.68 points out of 10, from 4.97 in October 2011. In November 2010 it had been 5.36.
The question on the royals had not been included in the monthly CIS survey since October 2011, just before Juan Carlos’s son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin was named in a corruption probe — the first major public scandal to hit the traditionally popular king’s family.
The latest poll was carried out between April 1 and 8, coinciding with the news that Urdangarin’s wife, the king’s younger daughter Cristina, was also formally named as a suspect in the affair.
She has appealed the summons to go before a judge in the investigation. The case centres on allegations of embezzlement against Urdangarin and his former business partner when the duke ran a non-profit institution from 2004 to 2006. Another poll carried out before Cristina’s summons and published in newspaper on April 7 showed that more than half of Spaniards disapproved of the king against 42 percent who approved.
Juan Carlos won wide respect in Spain for helping guide it through a political transition after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Half of Spaniards consider the political situation to be “very bad” and ranked corruption as Spain’s number two problem behind unemployment. A record high unemployment rate of 27 percent, political corruption allegations and austerity measures have eroded support for the two main political parties, the ruling People’s Party (PP) and socialist PSOE, the survey of 2,482 people showed. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s PP would take just 34 percent of the votes if a general election were called now, compared to 35 percent in January and the 44.6 percent the party received in the election in November 2011.
The PSOE would take 28.2 percent of the vote in elections, compared to 33.4 percent a year earlier. Its leader, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, inspired “no confidence” in 53 percent of respondents.
AFP
