Support for Brazil's Rousseff Slips to New Low
Public support for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has slipped to a record low, with her disapproval ratings rising to 65 percent, according to pollsters Datafolha on Saturday.
Support for Rousseff, embattled by a tanking economy and embroiled in a major graft scandal involving state-owned oil firm Petrobras, slumped to 10 percent, according to the polling firm.
"It's a new record in Datafolha polls since we started conducting them in January 2011," when Dilma took office, reported Folha de Sao Paulo, which is owned by the same group as Datafolha.
Major protests have rocked Brazil in recent months, with some critics calling for her to be impeached.
A Datafolha poll in March indicated disapproval of 62 percent, the highest for a Brazilian president since September 1992 on the eve of the impeachment of then president Fernando Collor de Mello, who resigned after Brazil's lower house voted to try him amid allegations of corruption.
The latest Datafolha survey involved 2,840 people in 174 municipalities and was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Petrobras scandal has implicated dozens of politicians, many of them Rousseff allies, and has seen support for the embattled president dive just months after she earned a second term.
Although Rousseff is a former Petrobras board chair, she herself is not under investigation over the multi-billion dollar kickback scheme.
Source: Agence France Presse
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