Brazil poll shows strong support for president's impeachment

RIO DE JANEIRO — A new poll published yesterday suggested strong support for the impeachment of embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in a politically polarized country mired in an economic recession and a corruption probe that has ensnared much of the county's political brass.

The poll by the respected Datafolha agency, published in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, said 68 percent of people surveyed want to see lawmakers vote to impeach Rousseff. That's up 8 percentage points since February, with the jump was highest among the rich, who supported Rousseff's impeachment by 74 percent.

Just 10 percent rated Rousseff's agoverment good or excellent, with 69 percent calling it bad or terrible.

The ratings of her predecessor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, were also down — possibly dented by controversy over his appointment as Rousseff's chief of staff, a move critics said was a bid to shield him from corruption allegations.

Fifty-seven percent said they disapprove of him — a dramatic drop from the xx percent approval rating he had when leaving office xxxxxx.

But in a sign of the depth of Brazilians' disgust with the entire political establishment, Silva held onto his ranking as the best president Brazil ever had, with 35 percent of the survey's respondents picking him, compared with the 16 percent who chose his predecessor, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

A Supreme Court justice on Friday suspended Silva's nomination to the Cabinet post, and the full Supreme Court will have to decide whether he can take office. Under Brazilian law, Cabinet members cannot be investigated, charged or imprisoned unless authorized by the Supreme Court.

The Datafolha survey was carried out on March 17 and 18, with face-to-face interviews with 2,794 people in171 cities and towns. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The effort to impeach Rousseff over allegations of fiscal mismanagement moved forward last week when the lower house created a special commission on the matter.

Rousseff backers say impeachment is a power grab by opponents who themselves have been sullied by an unrelated probe into kickbacks and bribery at the state-run oil company Petrobras. Eight of the 65 members of impeachment commission are currently facing charges, as is the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who opened the impeachment proceedings.

The political turmoil comes as Brazil prepares to host the Summer Olympics in August while struggling with an economic crisis and an outbreak of the Zika virus, which health experts believe may cause a devastating birth defect in newborns.