Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has seen her popularity dip to a new low with just 10% of voters approving of her government.
Brazilians who rate her administration as “bad” or “very bad” went up to 65%, according to a Datafolha poll.
The country’s unemployment has been increasing steadily in 2015 reaching 6.4% in April, the highest in four years, and up from 4.9% a year earlier. Of those in work, just over 12% is on the minimum wage.
Brazil's economy is shrinking possibly at its fastest pace in 25 years, analysts believe. Despite the downturn, the government raised taxes and interest rates in an effort to restore credibility with investors.
Also fanning discontent are the financial scandals swirling around.
The poll was taken before federal police on Friday arrested the chief executives of Brazil's two largest construction firms for allegedly participating in a corruption scheme that has been linked to Rousseff's Workers’ Party and to her predecessor, the popular Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Petrobas, the county’s oil giant, has been dogged for months by a massive corruption scandal which some believe could also involve as many as 40 senior politicians.
Healthcare, corruption and unemployment are the greatest concerns of Brazilian voters, the poll showed. The share of voters who cited unemployment as their biggest concern rose to 11%, from 6% in April, as the fear of joblessness rises with the economy’s decline.
Comments
As historically the Brazilians had the chance of being 'Britished' because we Brits. were guarding Portuguese interests as they were also ours and keeping the bad guys away ... but events took the Brazilians elsewhere.
Thanks to our US cousins it still has a GDP about 7 times more than Portugal's so cannot be doing too badly. But us British just wish they would stop the Amazon jungle being hacked down.