The government of radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil is planning to increase his public exposure after the results of a recent poll revealed that his disapproval rating has reached record highs, Brazilian outlets reported on Thursday.
According to the reports, the plans call for Lula appearing in more public events and giving more interviews to “expand the reach of his government’s actions,” in an attempt to restore his declining image in Brazil.
On Wednesday, the independent private polling firm Quaest released the results of a new series of “thermomether” polls on Lula’s government. The results, Quaest stressed, revealed “some worrying data” for the Brazilian government, particularly after it measured Lula’s disapproval rating at 57 percent, the highest recorded by the firm since the start of Lula’s third term in January 2023.
Most notably, Quaest pointed out that the survey found that, for the first time, Lula’s disapproval ratings is higher than his approval among Brazilian Catholics. Over half, 53 percent, of Catholic respondents expressed disapproval of the leftist President. Another 61 percent of all respondents considered that Brazil is going in the “wrong direction” and 56 percent said that Lula’s performance during his third presidential term is worse than his previous two.
According to the left-wing Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, the strategy of increasing Lula’s visibility was designed by Sidônio Palmeira, who took office as head of the Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom) of the Brazilian Presidency in January. Palmeira reportedly said that Lula should be the “content engine” of the Brazilian government’s communication.
Folha pointed out that the Brazilian government already tried this method in January, when Lula sat for an interview amid rising food and fuel costs that impacted the government’s image. At the time, Secom reportedly expressed its intention to have Lula participate in interviews more frequently, but the plans did not materialize.
Quaest’s director Felipe Nunes published a detailed breakdown of the poll’s results on social media on Wednesday. Nunes, in a series of posts, explained that, although the perception of the Brazilian economy has begun to show signs of improvement for the first time in many months, more Brazilians believe that Lula’s current term is “worse than they initially expected.”
“This is a clear breach of expectations, which has harmed the recovery of the government’s approval rating,” Nunes said.
Some of the factors affecting the images of both Lula and his government, Nunes explained, include an ongoing social security corruption probe and “frustrated expectations about the government’s performance.” An estimated 48 percent of respondents said that they believe that Lula is not well-intentioned and 70 percent said they believe Lula has not fulfilled his campaign promises.
Quaest also conducted a separate poll to measure possible scenarios ahead of the 2026 presidential election. According to the results, which Nunes detailed in a separate series of posts, Lula is “technically tied” within the margin of error with governor of São Paulo Tarcísio de Freitas, a staunch supporter of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro, in a presidential runoff scenario. Nunes pointed out that Lula’s advantage against de Freitas has plummeted from 26 to just one point.
The survey found that Lula is also “technically tied, within the margin of error” with former First Lady Michele Bolsonaro if a hypothetical runoff election were to take place right now. According to the poll, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is presently banned from running for office, appears “technically tied numerically” with Lula if an election were to take place right now. 66 percent of respondents answered that Lula should not seek reelection in 2026 and 65 percent answered that Bolsonaro should instead support another candidate.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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