Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 79, has been on a whirlwind marketing campaign of interviews and public appearances in latest weeks to shore up dwindling help, however the numbers hold getting worse.
The newest survey from Datafolha places his recognition score at 24% — the bottom within the three phrases the charismatic former metalworker has served as Brazilian President.
It’s the economic system
Mr. Lula has promised that 2025 would be the “year of the harvest” of his electoral guarantees, after spending the primary two years “fixing” destruction he stated was left behind by his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
One of those guarantees was that underneath his rule, Brazilians could be again to “eating picanha,” a preferred lower of beef that had gotten out of attain for a lot of.
However, inflation has saved meals costs stubbornly excessive — with one meme saying that as an alternative of picanha, Lula had delivered “intermittent fasting.”
In January, meals costs elevated 7.25% year-on-year.
Mr. Lula’s latest suggestion that the inhabitants may management meals costs by refusing to purchase items they felt had been too pricey was met with ridicule from the Opposition and solely irritated Brazilians additional.
“It’s a fundamental element” of the federal government’s poor picture proper now, political analyst Andre Cesar stated.
Mr. Lula has been at loggerheads with the central financial institution, which has raised its key lending price to 13.25% to fight inflation, with one other one-point rise anticipated in March.
The actual reached document lows in opposition to the greenback in December, though it has since recovered barely, amid investor issues over Brazil’s capability to curb public spending.
The leftist Lula — who beat Mr. Bolsonaro in 2022 by a razor-thin margin — is dealing with a surge in power of the worldwide proper with the return to energy of U.S. President Donald Trump.
At residence, Mr. Bolsonaro retains political power regardless of being barred from holding public workplace, and Congress has a right-wing majority.
“Today the conservative agenda is very strong in Congress,” which is presently mulling the criminalisation of drug possession and a attainable amnesty for Bolsonaro supporters jailed for a riot in opposition to the seats of energy in 2023, stated Mr. Cesar.
Mr. Lula and his authorities have struggled to stay forward of the Opposition in terms of the digital sphere.
In January, an avalanche of disinformation about plans to trace monetary transactions on the beloved PIX instantaneous cash switch system proved so difficult for the federal government to navigate that they backtracked totally.
The measure, a bid to fight tax evasion, was twisted on-line as a plan to tax transactions and assault the poor.
Nikolas Ferreira, 28, a fiery social media star who’s now a lawmaker for the right-wing Liberal Party, launched a video slamming the measure that racked up greater than 300 million views.
Mr. Lula’s “government is reactive… it has to face a right that is always two steps ahead,” stated Mr. Cesar. “The right is digital, the left remains analog.”
In a bid to retake management of the narrative, Mr. Lula not too long ago appointed a brand new communications chief and has been energetically participating the media and touring across the nation.
It continues to be unclear whether or not Mr. Lula will search reelection in 2026, however there’s “a certain fatigue” with the President, in keeping with an editorial within the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
This has been aggravated by his well being issues. The president underwent emergency surgical procedure to cease a mind bleed in December, a couple of months after he suffered a fall.
“I am 79 years old… I cannot lie to anyone and much less to myself,” Mr. Lula informed a neighborhood radio station. “If I am well, and I think I can be a candidate, I can run. But it is not my priority now.”
Published – February 19, 2025 12:26 pm IST
