RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro has never been more popular in Brazil, despite his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bolsonaro, who tested positive for the virus on July 7, has dismissed it as a “little flu”. Brazil passed five million Covid-19 cases on Tuesday and recorded over 150,000 cumulative deaths on Saturday, October 10th.
But 40 percent of Brazilians surveyed across 127 municipalities in September regarded Bolsonaro as “good/excellent,” according to a study from the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics, IBOPE. In comparison, he polled only 29 percent positive in December 2019, when Brazil did not have a single case of COVID-19.
His success, IBOPE argues can be largely attributed to the initiative launched in April which saw a monthly emergency aid payment of at least R$600 (US$120) given to sixty-seven million Brazilians.
The payments are part of a US$58 billion cash injection into the Brazilian economy. His popular success is remarkable, given that Bolsonaro has with regularity been criticized in the domestic and international media for making wild claims about the virus and trying to cover up the true extent of his country’s outbreak.
On March 26, Bolsonaro suggested that Brazilians were by nature immune to some diseases, and therefore the coronavirus was not a concern. The same week, Facebook and Twitter removed videos of Bolsonaro endorsing the anti malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment.
In April, when asked his reaction to news that a new record for daily deaths had been set, Bolsonaro said: “So what?” In June, the Health Ministry deleted months of data from its official Covid 19 tracker, and Bolsonaro was accused of censorship.
While Brazil is the third-worst affected country by the pandemic, its outbreak now appears to be relenting.
The popular emergency payments were halved last month and are due to be phased out in December. But Bolsonaro has promised to create a new scheme, “Citizen’s Income,” in 2021, including elements of the emergency aid.