SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s approval rating bounced back in May to nearly all-time highs as confidence grew in measures to stoke growth in Latin America’s largest economy, a new poll showed.
Lula’s approval rating of 69 per cent was 4 points higher than in March and close to the peak of 70 per cent in November 2008, pollster Datafolha said yesterday.
The former union leader’s rating slid in March from November as the global financial crisis took its toll on Brazil’s economy, with unemployment soaring.
“The previous drop was a direct result of the crisis,” Mauro Paulino, Datafolha’s general director, told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. “With people more confident in the government’s performance dealing with the crisis, the approval rating recovered.”
But Brazilians are now split on proposed constitutional changes that would allow Lula to run for a third consecutive term in the presidential election due in October 2010.
About 49 per cent said the law should not be changed, down sharply from 65 per cent in a November 2007 poll. But 47 per cent wanted the change to allow Lula to run again, up from 31 per cent in November 2007.
Lula has repeatedly said he has no intentions of seeking a third term but a lawmaker in the governing coalition has put forward a proposal for a referendum in September to amend the constitution.
Lula’s handpicked successor for president, chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, narrowed the gap sharply with front-runner Jose Serra, the poll also showed.
Support for Serra, the governor of Sao Paulo state and the opposition’s leading presidential hopeful, fell to 38 per cent from 41 per cent in March.
Rousseff, who revealed last month she had a tumour removed from her armpit and would have chemotherapy to treat lymphoma, saw her support rise to 16 per cent from 11 per cent in March as more Brazilians became familiar with her, Paulino said.
Datafolha interviewed 5,129 people from May 26-28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
