RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - MARCH 01: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff prepares to inaugurate the new Rio 450 tunnel on the 450th anniversary of the founding of Rio de Janeiro on March 1, 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio marks its 450th anniversary today and is celebrating the event with a yearlong series of events including concerts, exhibitions, historical tours, soccer matches, fireworks displays and other activities. The ''Marvelous City'' was founded in 1565 by the Portuguese and was the seat of power of the Portuguese Empire in the 19th century before serving as the capital of the Brazilian Republic until 1960. The city is Brazil's most popular tourist destination and will host the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the first to be held in South America, next year. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (2015 Getty Images)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The approval rating of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has fallen to a level not seen in the more than two decades since a president was impeached for corruption, her hit coming amid an economic crunch and a huge corruption scandal at the state energy company.
The Datafolha poll published Sunday by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo says only 10 percent of those surveyed consider Brazil's government to be "great" or "good." By contrast, 65 percent said the government is a "failure."
Rousseff's government has been rocked by a scandal involving the state-owned oil giant, Petrobras, which is at the center of what federal prosecutors call the biggest corruption scheme yet uncovered in Brazil.
Investigators say the nation's biggest construction and engineering firms paid at least $800 million in bribes and other funds to Petrobras executives and politicians in exchange for inflated contracts with the oil firm. Some of the money was allegedly funneled into the campaign coffers of the president's Workers' Party and its allies, although Rousseff herself has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
The approval rating was the lowest for a Brazilian leader since 1992, when President Fernando Collor de Mello was forced from office after being impeached for corruption.
The Datafolha poll was based on interviews with 2,840 people Wednesday and Thursday and had an error margin of 2 percentage points.
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