As many as 84 percent of Spanish voters don’t have confidence in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, according to a poll by Metroscopio for the newsdaily El País.

After nine months in power, since his centre-right Popular party won an absolute majority in the general elections in November, the discontent with the government’s politics is increasing also among PP’s voters, where every second citizen who voted for the party would not vote for them today.

The economic crisis is having a negative effect on PP, which has lost almost 14 percent of its advantage over the Socialist party, the main opposition party – 30.9 percent compared to 24.1 percent – and it is particularly the party leader who is losing support, according to the poll.

Bad result for several ministers

About 70 percent of those who participated in the poll in September said they believe Rajoy is improvising. The confidence in the prime minister has dropped faster than for his predecessors, former Prime Ministers José María Aznar and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Among the ministers in his government, none of them received a positive valuation. The worst result was that of Culture and Education Minister José Ignacio Wert (69 percent), followed by Employment Minister Fátima Báñez (64 percent), Budget Minister Cristóbal Montoro (62 percent) and Finance Minister Luis de Guindos (61 percent).

Opposition leader must change tactics

The Socialist party, however, does not do much better in the poll. Burdened with the heritage from Zapatero, which the party tried to rid itself of during the meeting of its leadership in the Comité Federal this weekend, the number of Spaniards who don’t have confidence in its leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba has increased by 6 percent during the last month.

Similar to the situation of PP’s leader, a majority of the Socialist voters disagree with Rubalcaba’s leadership and 76 percent has little or no confidence in him. The estimated election result for the Socialist party fell by 0.5 percent in a month and by 4.6 percent since the general elections.

People expect a rescue

While everyone is waiting to see whether Rajoy will request a rescue or not, 72 percent of the participants in the poll say they believe the decisions on Spain’s economy will be taken in Brussels. This belief is also shared by 69 percent of PP’s voters.

As many as 58 percent say they believe a financial intervention will be negative for Spain.

This article was translated and edited by Stina Lunden.