Politics is a big turn off for 60% of Balearics

PALMA
NOT only does there appear to be a great deal of voter apathy amongst the foreign residents entitled to vote in the forthcoming May local elections, there does not appear to be much political interest in Balearic politics in general.

As results of a poll carried out by the Gadeso socio-economic foundation revealed yesterday that 60 percent of Balearic citizens claim to have no interest in Balearics politics.

The survey was carried out earlier this month and over 900 people were questioned.
If correct, the findings will send shock waves through the local political parties as they face a battle to not only win the vote of the electorate but to get them to vote in the first place.

But, apart from 60.2 percent of the population having no interest in local politics, confidence in the political leaders is running low.
Gadeso has discovered that 22.5 percent of the population have a limited interest in local political affairs, 9.2 percent claim to regularly follow political developments and only 8.1 percent maintain to have a deep interest in local politics.

However, 86.2 percent of the population claim that the parties fail to provide enough information.

PUBLIC RATINGS
As the above public ratings league shows, the two main parties battling to either stay in power or return to power, the governing PSOE Socialists and the opposition Partido Popular, were awarded just 4.2 points each out of a maximum of ten.

The PSM-Green coalition led by the increasingly popular Biel Barcelo, received 4.1 points, the Esquerra Unida (United Left) 3.4 points.
The troubled UM Majorcan Unionist Party polled just 2.3 points and the Esquerra, the Left, a mere 1.3 points.
The problem with the Esquerra appears to be that no one knows enough about its leader Manel Carmona - when it came to party leader ratings, he failed to register because no one knew anything, or enough, about him to give him a score.

President Antich is still by far the most popular leader winning 4.2 points while his main adversary Bauza, picking up 3.7, less than the PSM-Greens leader Biel Barcelo who won four points.

And, the majority of the Balearic population have a bleak outlook about the political future of both Spain and the islands.
67 percent consider the current political situation of Spain as poor, 68 percent in the case of the Balearics and looking ahead, the majority think the situation will remain the same of could even get worse in Spain and the Balearics in the short term.