MADRID, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Nearly nine in 10 Spaniards blame Morocco for the mass migrant crossings into Ceuta in late July, while a majority rate Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s handling of the crisis as “bad” or “very bad”, according to an opinion poll released on Monday that also showed a drop in support for Sanchez’s party.
The 40dB poll of 2,000 people for El Pais newspaper and radio station SER also recorded an increase in voting intentions for the conservatives and the anti-immigration, far-right Vox party, in line with several other polls conducted after the deadly border surge into Spain’s North African enclave.
• For 89% of respondents, Morocco bore the most responsibility for the crisis, followed by human-trafficking groups (75%), the spread of disinformation on social media (74%), the migrants who decided to cross (73%) and the Spanish government (72%), the 40dB poll found.
• Only 14.2% rated Sanchez’s handling of the crisis positively, with two-thirds of those surveyed saying his response was too slow.
• The combined voting intentions for the conservative People’s Party and Vox hit 50.2%, leading their potential right-wing alliance to breach the 50% mark for the first time in an opinion poll during this legislature. The centre-left bloc fell to 36.1%.
• The PP rose to 32.4%, from 32% in the previous 40dB poll in July, and Vox to 17.8% from 17.2%, while Sanchez’s Socialist Party dipped to 27.6% from 28%.
• About 27% of respondents named Vox as the most capable party on the issue of immigration, ahead of the Socialists at 18.4% and the PP at 13.9%.
• Seven out of 10 chose tighter border controls over protecting vulnerable migrants and 82% backed increasing fences and surveillance at Spain’s borders.
(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Alex Richardson)
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