RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s approval rating remains at its highest level since he took office in 2019, despite the country experiencing the world’s second-deadliest coronavirus outbreak, a poll showed on Sunday.
The Datafolha poll found that 37% of those surveyed viewed Bolsonaro’s government as great or good, unchanged from August, while 32% saw it as bad or terrible, down 2 points.
COVID-19 has caused more than 180,000 deaths in Brazil, second only to the United States.
In September, Bolsonaro extended until the end of the year payments for low-income Brazilians hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, a program that has boosted his popularity but created tension with his finance team.
The monthly stipend begun in April was reduced by half to 300 reais ($59) in September and is paid to poor and informal-sector workers who have seen their earnings battered by the crisis.
The survey, conducted with 2,016 people from Dec. 8 to 10, had a 2-percentage-point margin of error.
($1 = 5.0656 reais)
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle; Editing by Peter Cooney)
