Disapproval of Lula reaches highest level since January 2024; economy and corruption are concerns

Disapproval of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's (PT) government reached its highest level since January 2024, according to a new round of the AtlasIntel/Bloomberg survey released this Friday (30). The negative assessment reached 53.7% and interrupted the first drop recorded last month, when it reached 50.1%.

On the other hand, approval fell from 46.1% in April to 45.4% in May. According to the survey, economic issues and corruption are of concern to Brazilians:

AtlasIntel interviewed 4,399 people between May 19 and 23 through random digital recruitment. The margin of error is 1 percentage point with a 95% confidence level.

The interruption in the decline in disapproval ratings comes amid yet another crisis created by the government, that of the increase in the IOF (Tax on Financial Transactions) by the Ministry of Finance, which has generated complaints from Congress, which claims it was not warned. It was the second most serious crisis of the year under the command of publicist Sidônio Palmeira at the Social Communication Secretariat (Secom) of the Presidency of the Republic, hired by Lula to improve his popularity with a view to reelection in 2026.

The successive crises and even controversial statements by Lula have not helped Palmeira's work, who now sees an increase in negative evaluations in May.

According to AtlasIntel, the bad/terrible rating also increased compared to April and reached 52.1%. The excellent/good rating increased slightly and reached 41.9%, while the average rating fell to 6%:

Lula's poor/terrible evaluation occurs mainly among women, people with complete secondary education, aged 35 to 44, Bolsa Família beneficiaries (53.2%); residents of the Center-West, North, South and Southeast; with a family income of up to R$5,000 and among evangelicals (71.5%).

Those interviewed by AtlasIntel stated that Lula has been performing worse than Bolsonaro, especially on economic and social issues:

• Fiscal responsibility and spending control: 55%;
• Public safety: 54%;
• Taxes and fiscal burden: 53%;
• Agriculture: 53%;
• Business environment and job creation: 52%;
• Justice and fight against corruption: 51%.

For 59.5%, corruption is still the biggest problem facing Brazil, followed by crime and drug trafficking (50.2%) and the economy and inflation (29.4%):

More than half of those interviewed (51%) believe that Brazil is experiencing a bad economic situation as a whole, but with a 45% perspective of improvement technically tied with a pessimism of 44%.

There was also an increase in pessimism regarding inflation, with 44.4% of respondents stating that they should make fewer purchases of durable goods, while 28.6% expect to buy more and 23.9% see no change in their intention to make new purchases.