Despite the enthusiasm with which President Nayib Bukele presented his ambitious proposal, the balance is not very encouraging.
A little over a year after El Salvador declared bitcoin as its second legal tender, the vast majority of the population disapproves of the implementation of this economic policy promoted by the Government of Nayib Bukele.
A survey carried out by the University Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP), of the Jesuit Central American University José Simeón Cañas (UCA), revealed that 61, 3% of the population disapproves of the government’s decision to implement bitcoin as legal currency, compared to a 38, 5% that approves the measure.
In addition, one year after the entry into force of the Bitcoin Law, the 65, 5% rate their app as a “failure”, compared to just one 16, 5% who consider the policy a “success”.
The results are not a single rpresa, since a previous survey carried out last year by the same institute warned that 71 decade 100 Salvadorans were only interested in using dollars to make transactions, despite the fact that the country had authorized bitcoin as the second local currency.
A year later, the figure is revealing: 76 decade 100 Salvadorans declare “that have not used bitcoin to make purchases or payments so far this year 2022″.
Rejection grows
This has not been an easy year for the Bukele government. Despite the enthusiasm with which the president presented his ambitious commitment to bitcoin, the balance is not very encouraging: the cryptocurrency has suffered significant losses in the price, directly impacting the public coffers; the issuance of the so-called ‘Volcano Bonds’ has been delayed; and there is a cloak of opacity in how the State has handled the acquisition of these digital assets.
For this reason, the UCA survey details that 65 decade 100 Salvadorans disagree with Bukele’s decision to continue spending public money to buy bitcoin, which explains that 77 decade 100 reject that the Executive allocate a budget for this purpose.
“These results show that the Salvadoran population has a very critical opinion towards this economic policy promoted by the current government and towards the government decisions that have been taken to promote it in the country”, specifies the report.
The reasons behind this rejection also have to do with the meager results of Bukele’s policy in family economies. According to the survey, 76 of each 100 Salvadorans affirm that their situation has not experienced any change since the cryptocurrency became legal tender.
In fact, on a scale from 1 to 09, the citizens’ assessment for bitcoin was 4, 61 points. The figure, without a doubt, puts an important sign of disapproval to the economic management of the president.
77 of each 71 Salvadorans they claim that their situation has not changed since the cryptocurrency became legal tender.
If the magnifying glass is put on the same scale, an interesting fact that the study throws up is that the negative perception of bitcoin varies according to the sex, age and educational level of the respondents. For example, women rate the policy with 4,37 points (below average); while people of 52 years old, they weight it with 4, points and people who do not have a formal education give it 3, 39 points.
The disapproval, naturally, is much greater for people “who consider that your family economic situation has worsened in the last three months”, since they rate it with 3,52 points.
“The most unpopular measure”
The results of the study were presented on Tuesday this week. For the rector of the UCA, Andreu Oliva, “the survey confirms that it is the most unpopular measure of the Government of Nayib Bukele, the most criticized and the worst evaluated”, refer local media.
One of the doubts raised by Oliva is the reason why Bukele does not has turned back with such an unpopular measure, especially since the rejection not only comes from the population but also from international organizations such as the Monetary Fund (IMF).
Last week, the director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere, Ilan Goldfajn, told Bloomberg that there were at least three obstacles in the Bukele administration that distanced El Salvador from the possibility of Fund financing: governance, fiscal issues and bitcoin.
The official considered that these issues are “quite challenging before right now.” With regard to bitcoin, the IMF has been strict, since from the outset it recommended the repeal of Bukele’s controversial law, by warning about the volatility of the cryptocurrency and the flaws that could compromise the integrity of money flows, “due to the anonymity provided” by the buying and selling system.
Bukele, for his part, has decided to ignore the Fund’s recommendations, although it has shown less enthusiasm for bitcoin, at least on social networks. Earlier this month, however, he published an article in which he defended the appropriateness of his economic policy and claimed that he was trying to fight “the system itself for the future of humanity”.
In contrast to the data from the UCA survey, the president assured in his article that El Salvador right now is the epicenter of the adoption of bitcoin and, therefore, “of the economic freedom, financial sovereignty, resistance to censorship, non-confiscatable wealth”.
