Anti-mining protests batter President Humala's approval rating

Peruvian newspaper La Republica released a poll showing that Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s approval rating had dropped by 8 percentage points to just 16%, a new low for the president. The article explained that the lackluster support for the country’s president is due to his poor management of the Tía María protests. Nonetheless, the article notes that the Humala administration has also been beset by corruption scandals and accusations of illegal spying in addition to the proliferation of anti-mining social conflicts in the country.

Interestingly, despite Southern Copper’s repeated explanations that the mining project will use a water desalination plant and thus have no impact on the area’s local water supplies, the same poll showed that 59% of respondents were sympathetic to the protesters’ concerns regarding environmental contamination from the mining project. Clearly, both the Mexican mining company and the Peruvian government are doing a terrible job explaining the project to both the local community in Islay Province and to the nation as a whole.

In related news, Carlos Gálvez, the head of Peru’s main mining trade association, warned that social conflicts in the country will likely increase next year as the presidential and congressional elections will incentivize politicians to foment anti-mining sentiment. Talking about rural Peru, Gálvez said, “Here everyone is anti. If you're anti-mining then you're in fashion.”

Our recommendation to Gálvez would be to stop complaining about politicians acting like opportunists, as one might as well complain about Argentina and Brazil dominating the continent’s soccer competitions. Instead, Gálvez should focus his efforts on how to make being pro-mining “in fashion” in rural Peru.

Despite its unpopularity, the mining sector rebounded in April, with production growing by 9.25% over the previous year, propping up the Peruvian economy’s year-to-year growth of just 2.35%.