New poll confirms and expands Lula da Silva’s decline in popularity

The IPEC Institute (formerly Ibope) poll published in Brazil this Friday confirmed the downward trend in the popularity of President Lula da Silva, which was already noted earlier in the week by the Genial Quaest Institute poll. A new poll reveals an even bleaker picture for the veteran politician, with those who approved of him last December rising to those who approve of him now.

According to IPEC, Lula da Silva is currently approved by 33% of Brazilians, the worst approval rating the institute has ever recorded since the start of his third presidential term, which began last January. The share of those who completely disapprove of the president is almost identical – 32%, while another 33% rate his administration as regular.

In the previous IPEC poll, published last December, Lula’s approval stood at 38%, five percentage points higher than today. At the beginning of the week, the Instituto Genial Quaest already announced a drop in the president’s rating, but in this case with a smaller drop, by three percentage points, from January to March.

Obsessed with the idea of ​​becoming a great world leader (a goal that suffered significant setbacks), Lula, according to Brazilians, traveled too much and forgot the true and serious problems facing the country, which partly explains the growing rejection. Catastrophic statements such as comparing Israel’s murderous actions in Gaza to Hitler’s massacre of Jews and, more recently, attacks on the Venezuelan opposition, declaring that anyone who opposes dictator Nicolas Maduro is “useless” and that he is “whining” Instead of acting, they have also contributed to the alienation of citizens from the figure of the President, who less than a year and a half ago, in the presidential elections of October 2022, emerged and was elected as the great hope of keeping Brazil in the zone of democracy, against the dictatorial intentions of Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula guaranteed democracy both in the elections and on January 8, 2023, when, a week after taking office, thousands of radical Bolsonari followers invaded Congress, the Federal Supreme Court and the presidential palace in Brasilia to try to force military intervention, but other than that, it has not yet taken the measures that citizens hoped would make their lives easier. Food prices continue to rise and nothing is done, the same is happening with water, electricity and transport, violence has reached unbearable levels, dengue epidemics and again Covid-19 are back with force, and the President has not addressed the issue, as if he did not even know neither cared nor did the Ministry of Health seem to be able to do anything to minimize the situation, and many of Lula’s voters are left feeling helpless and frustrated by it all.