Peruvians clamor for jobs, hammer Toledo in poll

LIMA, Peru, Feb 18 (Reuters) - President Alejandro Toledo sank to a 65 percent disapproval rating in a new poll on Monday as Peruvians complained he should be creating jobs instead of investigating corruption under ex-President Alberto Fujimori. 

Toledo scored with voters when he promised to "put Peru to work" but seven months after taking office, less than one in three respondents of the survey by Peru's most respected pollsters, Apoyo, thought he was doing a good job himself. 

Forty-seven percent of respondents thought the government was concentrating on investigating the 1990-2000 rule of Fujimori and myriad corruption scandals sparked by his jailed spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos -- a subject only two percent thought should be a government priority. 

Meanwhile, just 11 percent thought the government was focusing on attracting investment and creating jobs, while 49 percent said that ought to be the priority. 

More than half of Peru's 26 million people scrape by on $1.25 a day or less and unemployment or underemployment top 50 percent in a country where drivers hire out cars by the day to run informal taxi services and vendors hawking everything from candies to pirated CDs congregate at traffic lights. 

"Toledo had a lot of good intentions but then he came up against the crude reality of Peru," said Nelly, a 38-year-old doctor. "He promised more jobs ... but we don't see them yet." 

The survey was slightly bleaker than one published by pollsters Datum last week, which found 61 percent of Peruvians were critical of the man who promised to create a million new jobs, kick-start Peru's lackluster economy and fight poverty. 

Toledo, a rags-to-riches economist of Andean Indian descent, says Peru will post the highest growth of any Latin American economy this year and has launched a string of initiatives to turn his "more work" slogan into reality. 

GIVE US TIME, GOVERNMENT SAYS 

But Prime Minister Roberto Danino acknowledged people had yet to feel the benefits, and urged the public to have patience. Popular frustration has translated into near daily job protests and unions plan a national strike in March. 

"People feel that there still aren't as many jobs as there need to be and we're the first to recognize that," he told CPN radio. "There's a limit to what you can do in six months ... We're going to make an effort so that programs like (job scheme) "A Trabajar" (To Work) have immediate impact." 

The government will have its work cut out. The poll, which surveyed 1,568 people nationwide and had an error margin of 2.5 percent, found 63 percent of respondents disapproved of the government's economic policy while 43 percent thought their own personal economic situation had worsened in the last year. 

With just 27 percent approval, Toledo who has recently appointed Chilean image-makers, is one of Peru's least-loved politicians, the survey showed. More than half of those polled faulted him for failing to keep his promises. 

But 27 percent praised Toledo's democratic credentials after Fujimori's hard-line rule which collapsed in a corruption scandal in 2000. Peru wants him extradited from self-exile in Japan to face charges of graft and human rights abuses. 

The poll showed 22 percent also liked Toledo's closeness to the people and 18 percent saw signs the economy was improving. 

Eduardo Decoll, 47, who lost his job when the engineering company where he worked closed this month, said Toledo had succeeded in selling Peru's image abroad as a "promising country" in which to invest. But he was disappointed in the 

 © 1999-2004, PERU TO YOU    This page last updated on January 26, 2006