Once called the world's most popular politician, Brazil’s Lula faces plummeting approval

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was once called the most popular politician on Earth by then-U.S. President Barack Obama. Those times are long gone.

Halfway through his latest four-year term, Lula's approval rating has plunged down to levels never before seen in any of this three administrations. Brazil's economy is growing and its unemployment is decreasing, but people are complaining about higher food prices and crime.

Lula’s approval rating has dropped to 24%, according to the country’s most prominent pollster Datafolha in its latest February poll, which interviewed 2,007 people across Brazil with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. That is an all-time low across his time in office from 2003 to 2010, and since he took office again in 2023. The previous record was 28% in 2005. Surveys by other firms also show a rise in discontent.

And in an apparent attempt to claw back support, the government on Thursday is hosting an event in the capital, Brasilia.

“The objective is to present the achievements of the Federal Government in the first two years,” the presidential palace said in a statement this week.

Lula’s difficulties come against a Brazilian political landscape in upheaval, with his predecessor and bitter rival former President Jair Bolsonaro due to stand trial on charges that the right-wing politician attempted a coup.

The plunge in support also comes as Lula, 79, weighs whether to run for re-election next year.

For many observers, the increase in the cost of food is a top reason for Lula’s fall in popularity. Food and drinks were nearly 8% more expensive in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to Brazil's national statistics agency.

“Food inflation has a direct impact on people’s lives,” said Carla Beni, a professor of economics at Getulio Vargas Foundation, pointing especially to the rise of the cost of meat, a staple of Brazilians' diet.

Beni said prices have soared due to the impact of climate change on crops and the strengthening of the dollar against the real.

An uptick in food prices particularly affects the poor – Lula’s historical support base. A poll by private firm Genial/Quaest released Wednesday showed a surge in disapproval among women, Black people and in Brazil’s poorer northeast. In six months, the percentage of respondents who disapprove of Lula's administration in the northeast jumped from 26% to 46%. And more women have a poor opinion of the government than they do a positive one.

“Not only are things expensive, but we’re also living in a dangerous country,” said Anderson Vianna, 45, a sales representative who lives Rio de Janeiro's low-income northern zone. “If you have your phone in hand, you can’t relax,” added the man who voted for Lula in 2002, 2006 and 2022.

To reign in food inflation, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin announced on March 6 that the government would reduce import taxes to zero on a series of products, including meat and coffee.

But the measure does not appear to have turned the public’s perception of the government. João Feres, a political scientist at Rio de Janeiro State University, said Lula’s government has a myriad of public policies but “the problem is communicating the results of these policies.”

A blow to Lula came in January, when his government said it would increase oversight of financial transactions, including Brazil’s popular instant payment system PIX.

That sparked a flurry of fake news pushed by far-right politicians close to Bolsonaro, who said the government planned to impose a new tax on PIX payments. The administration denied the accusation, but ended up backtracking on the step.

“That was the first point that really damaged Lula’s image,” said Paulo Feldmann, an economist at the University of Sao Paulo.

Crime and violence are other top concerns.

“Since the end of restriction of movement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it's in first place” in the ranking of Brazilians' worries, said Marcos Calliari, the country's director of pollster IPSOS.

Over the weekend, the video of an influencer inadvertently filming the moment her phone was stolen at the Lollapalooza festival in Sao Paulo went viral. Almost one in 10 Brazilians had their phone stolen between July 2023 and June 2024, according to Datafolha.

Lula has sharpened his tone against thieves in recent weeks. “We will not allow criminals to take over our country,” he said on March 19.

The justice ministry is planning to send a bill to Congress that would increase the maximum sentence for receiving and benefiting from stolen cellphones from eight to up to 12 years, it said in a statement on Friday.

Lula’s government is also preparing a wider bill on security.

To woo back voters, the government is also counting on a proposal to cut taxation for the poor. Mid-March, the administration sent a bill to Congress that seeks to exempt individuals earning up to 5000 reais (around $880) per month from income tax, up from around 2,300 reais currently.

If Congress approves the bill, observers say it could be a big win for Lula, though it's uncertain whether it will restore his popularity.

With Lula struggling in the polls and Bolsonaro barred from running until 2030, the next election is much more unpredictable than the previous one, Beni said.

Vianna, the sales representative, said he is disappointed and is not sure he would vote for Lula again. “We need a renewal.”

FILE - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attends a summit at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - Police ride past residents in a bulldozer they use to clear street barricades during a security operation against organized crime in the Mare Complex favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File)

FILE - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, addresses members of the judiciary, parliament and state governors, regarding the implementation of the Unified Public Security System to combat organized crime, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - A boy receives food donated by a social project at the Turano favela, in Rio de Janeiro, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File)

FILE - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leans over to talk with first lady Rosangela da Silva, during the opening event of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty meeting, on the sidelines of the G20 Ministerial Meetings in Rio de Janeiro, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)

FILE - Former President Jair Bolsonaro talks to reporters after arriving at the airport in Brasilia, Brazil, June 30, 2023. Bolsonaro was barred from running for office again until 2030 after a panel of judges concluded that he abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the country's electronic voting system. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and first lady Rosangela da Silva attend a pro-democracy event marking two years since the alleged coup attempt when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro invaded government buildings and called for military intervention, in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Nova, File)

FILE - U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, react during the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)

FILE - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves at the start of the Independence Day military parade, in Brasilia, Brazil, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine (AP) — Anger and outrage gripped the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday as it held funerals for some of the 20 people, including nine children, killed by a Russian missile that tore through apartment buildings and blasted a playground.

More than 70 were wounded in the attack last Friday evening on Kryvyi Rih. The children were playing on swings and in a sandbox in a tree-lined park at the time. Bodies were strewn across the grass.

“We are not asking for pity,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city administration, wrote on Telegram as Kryvyi Rih mourned. “We demand the world’s outrage.”

The U.N. Human Rights Office in Ukraine said it was the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was also one of the deadliest attacks so far this year.

Ukraine has consented to a ceasefire proposed weeks ago by Washington. But Russia is still negotiating with the United States its terms for accepting a truce in the more than three-year war.

U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the continued fighting, and Ukrainian officials want him to compel Putin to stop. Trump vowed during his election campaign last year to bring a swift end to the war.

“We’re talking to Russia. We’d like them to stop,” Trump told reporters Sunday. “I don’t like the bombing.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Monday that Putin supports a ceasefire proposed by Trump but wants Russian conditions to be met.

“President Putin indeed backs the ceasefire idea, but it’s necessary to first answer quite a few questions,” Peskov said.

In Kryvyi Rih, teacher Iryna Kholod, 59, remembered Arina and Radyslav, both 7 years old and killed in Friday's strike, as being “like little suns in the classroom.”

Radyslav, she said, was proud to be part of a school campaign collecting pet food for stray animals. “He held the bag like it was treasure. He wanted to help,” she told The Associated Press.

After Friday evening, "two desks in my classroom were empty forever,” Kholod said, adding that she still has unopened birthday gifts for them.

“How do I tell parents to return their textbooks? How do I teach without them?” she asked.

Russian missile and drone tactics continue to evolve, making it harder to shoot them down, Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force command, said on national television.

Russia's Shahed drones have undergone significant upgrades, while Moscow is also modernizing its ballistic missiles, he said.

Only the U.S. Patriot missile defense system can help prevent attacks like the one in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy said late Sunday.

He said he had instructed his defense and foreign affairs ministers to "work bilaterally on air defense, especially with the United States, which has sufficient potential to help stop any terror.”

Ukraine will send a team to Washington this week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told The Associated Press.

Failure to conclude a mineral deal has hamstrung Ukrainian efforts to secure pledges of continuing U.S. military support.

Britain's Ministry of Defense and the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, say Russia's battlefield progress on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has slowed since November. But on Saturday night, Russia launched its biggest aerial attack on Ukraine in nearly a month.

Both sides are thought to be preparing for a renewed spring-summer military campaign.

In Kryvyi Rih on Monday, Nataliia Slobodeniuk recalled her student Danylo Nikitskyi, 15, as “a spark” who energized the classroom and helped organize school trips and other occasions.

Danylo died alongside his girlfriend, Alina Kutsenko, also 15. “They were holding hands,” said Roman Nikitskyi, Danylo’s father.

“If Danylo was going, half the class went too,” the 55-year-old teacher said. “That’s how loved he was.”

She choked up as she spoke of her feeling of powerlessness after the attack.

“You live through their joy, their sadness,” she told AP. “And now, this pain, it tears you apart. And you realize there’s nothing you can do. Nothing to fix it. You just carry the pain forever.”

An air raid alert interrupted a planned memorial ceremony in the city — a reminder of the continuing threat for civilians.

The frustration hit home for Nataliia Freylikh, the schoolteacher of 9-year-old Herman Tripolets, who was killed in last Friday's attack. Tripolets’ funeral procession began at the child’s school, where teachers, classmates, and families gathered in silence. Nearly one hundred people stood grief-stricken together.

“Even mourning him properly is impossible,” Freylikh said.

From there, the mourners walked to the church for the funeral liturgy — and bid a final farewell to the children who never made it home.

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Flowers and toys left in the play area to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday, near apartment buildings, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo)

Flowers and toys left on a swing seat to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday, at a children play area near the damaged apartment buildings, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo)