Brazil: Bolsonaro's popularity continues to rise

The popularity rating of President Jair Bolsonaro's government has jumped from 29% to 40% in ten months, according to a poll released on Thursday, despite criticism of its environmental policy and its handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Read also: Jair Bolsonaro as "father of the poor": transient change or real transformation?

According to this opinion poll carried out by the Ibope Institute from September 17 to 20, 40% of those questioned consider the Bolsonaro government

or

, the highest rate of favorable opinions since the beginning of his mandate, in January 2019. This is above all a gain of 11 points compared to the previous survey of this type published by this institute in December 2019. The rejection rate has also fallen sharply, from 38% at 29%.

As for President Bolsonaro in his personal capacity, 50% of those questioned say

, against 41% in December.

Moreover, even if 51% of those polled say

they

in Jair Bolsonaro, they were 56% in December, while those for whom the head of state inspires confidence have fallen from 41% to 46%.

A monthly allowance of 100 euros

These results confirm the trends already observed in a poll carried out on August 11 and 12 by the Datafolha institute, which credited the head of state with 37% of favorable opinions, against 32% in June.

The rejection rate had dropped ten points to 34%.

Other recent polls had already shown that Jair Bolsonaro had every chance of being re-elected in 2022 for a second term.

As for the Datafolha poll, that of the Ibope Institute shows that the popularity of the far-right leader has increased among the poorest Brazilians, who received from April to August a monthly allowance of 600 reais (100 euros) for deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

This allowance was extended until December, but halved, without damaging the popularity of the president and his government.

However, the head of state has come under much criticism for his management of the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 139,000 in Brazil, the second most bereaved country in the world after the United States.

Jair Bolsonaro is also widely criticized, in Brazil and abroad, for his environmental management, deforestation remaining very high, with a new upsurge in forest fires in the Amazon and especially in the Pantanal, in the south of the Amazon.