Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s disapproval rating rose to the highest level since he came to power two and a half years ago, with the far-right leader also slipping behind his main rival ahead of the election in 2022, a poll showed on Thursday.

The survey, carried out by Brazilian pollster XP/Ipespe on July 5-7, showed voter support for Bolsonaro falling as much as 14 percentage points behind former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

According to the poll, 52% of respondents said Bolsonaro’s government is doing a “bad/terrible” job, up from 50% in the June poll. That is the highest since these polls started in January 2019, when Bolsonaro took office.

That figure has risen steadily from 31% in October, as a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation almost quadrupling to more than 8% has forced the government to extend emergency cash transfers to millions of poor families.

Half of those polled said they expect Bolsonaro to do a “bad/terrible” job for the remainder of his presidency, up from 47% in June and also the highest since the polls started.

Ahead of next year’s elections, former leftist President ‘Lula’ strengthened his lead over Bolsonaro, the poll showed. Although neither of them have announced their candidacy, the 2022 election is widely expected to be a run-off between the two polarizing figures.

In a simulated first-round vote, Lula saw his share jump to 38% from 32% in the June poll. Bolsonaro’s first-round support fell two percentage points to 26%. A second-round matchup showed Lula’s support rose to 49% from 45% in the previous survey, while Bolsonaro’s slipped to 35% from 36%.

The poll was based on 1,000 interviews, conducted from July 5-7, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

TodayNG