President Jair Bolsonaro's popularity has fallen to its lowest level in nearly three years in office, with just 22% of favorable opinions, according to a survey by the Datafolha institute released Thursday, September 16.
Read also In Brazil, the street calls for the dismissal of Jair Bolsonaro
Only 22% of those questioned consider the management of the far-right president to be
“good”
or
“very good”
, against 24% in July, according to this first poll published after the major demonstrations that Bolsonaro had called on September 7 to galvanize his supporters .
The percentage of unfavorable opinions rose to 53%, against 51% in July and 45% in May, for this survey conducted by this benchmark institute among 3,667 people, from September 13 to 15.
The rejection rate is higher among black people (59%), young people aged 16 to 24 (59%) or homosexuals (61%), while the president obtains more favorable opinions among evangelicals (29 %) or business leaders (38%).
Loser to Lula
Much criticized for his management of the Covid-19 pandemic which killed more than 588,000 people in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who came to power in January 2019, has been running unfavorable polls for several months. Brazil's economic situation has also deteriorated, with soaring inflation and an energy crisis caused by a historic drought. He is also the target of several investigations opened at the request of the Supreme Court, one of them for disseminating false information and another after being accused of turning a blind eye to suspicion of corruption in the purchase of vaccines. against Covid-19. In the latest polls on the 2022 presidential election, he was largely the loser to the left-wing ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, if the latter decided to run again.
Brazil: open war between Jair Bolsonaro and the Supreme Court
Cornered, Bolsonaro tried to gamble it all by calling his supporters to massive protests to support him across the country on September 7, Brazil's national day. Several tens of thousands of people took to the streets, but without the record crowd that the Head of State dreamed of: according to the Sao Paulo police, 125,000 demonstrators were on Paulista Avenue, while he was expecting some
" two million ”
. In fiery speeches in Sao Paulo and Brasilia, Jair Bolsonaro fiercely attacked the Supreme Court and once again criticized the electronic ballot system. But two days later, when the institutional crisis was at its height, he backed down by asserting that his
"forceful"
words
were pronounced
“in the heat of the moment”
.