73% of those polled by Gallup said they support the recent round of protests, all of them for mixed reasons.
Only 13% of those polled said they were against the protests, and 14% had no opinion. The trend Gallup observed was that respondents who were higher-income earners and who had university education were more likely to be against the protests, while lower-income and not-as-educated respondents supported them.
Broken down by party lines, conservatives were more likely to support the protests than leftists. Only about 40% of Social Democrats and 63% of Leftist-Greens support them, but 75% of Independence Party voters support the protests. 95% of voters for The Movement – which is neither left nor right – also support the protests.
The reasons for supporting the protest, RÚV reports, were varied. Only one-third said it was due to a perceived lack of action on behalf of the government in trying to relieve household debt. What the other reasons were was not indicated.
The government has recently adopted a number of measures in an effort to help struggling households, among them that individuals in debt can receive shelter from collection agencies so long as they show that they are seeking assistance from the Debtors’ Ombudsman, who represents the interests of debtors and offers them support if applicable.
Conservatives have been clamouring for early elections, or at least “national government” – wherein all political parties share power in parliament, and there is no ruling coalition or opposition.
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