World Leader Poll: Modi, Bolsonaro More Popular than Biden

A Morning Consult survey released on Friday found several controversial world leaders with higher approval ratings than President Joe Biden, including Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose reelection bid in October is supposedly doomed.

The highest approval rating charted in the survey was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has vociferous domestic opposition and no shortage of international critics, but notched a remarkable approval/disapproval ratio of 75 percent to 20 percent. 

The Times of India (TOI) noted Modi topped the list in two previous surveys of world leader popularity. With tongue slightly in cheek, The Economist suggested Modi is able to maintain sky-high approval ratings while thousands of angry protesters encircle Delhi because the Indian opposition is comprehensively “useless.” India’s opposition parties tend to put less energy into criticizing him than attacking each other, and occasionally themselves.

A more cynical analysis is that Modi and his BJP party have grown very adept at preventing their opponents from organizing and mounting effective political challenges.

The top three was rounded out by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico (63/29) and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia (58/29). Albanese is one of the newer names to appear on the Morning Consult list, having been elected to his office in late May.

Biden chugged into 11th place out 22 world leaders ranked by Morning Consult with 41/52 approval/disapproval – three slots below dead-man-walking Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (42/50). Bolsonaro is under constant attack for criticizing the Brazilian election system and suggesting he might not respect the results of an election that does not meet his standards of “clean and transparent” voting. The Europeans are putting down some heavy bets that Bolsonaro will not survive his re-election contest against left-wing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazilian polls have tightened a little as the election approaches, but most still show Lula with a double-digit lead and project an even larger margin of victory if Bolsonaro makes it through the first round of voting and faces Lula in a runoff.

Bolsonaro and Biden both scored considerably lower ratings than Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who had a net +15 approval at 54/39 even though he tendered his resignation last month. Draghi won applause for leading Italy through its post-pandemic economic crisis, but was then undone by Italy’s turbulent coalition politics.

Biden can take some consolation from edging out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who scored 39/52. The least popular world leader listed in the survey was another fairly recent arrival in office, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was elected in March.

Yoon’s popularity cratered quickly even though his first hundred days included some good news about the economy and international affairs. Every South Korean president enters office as a lame duck, thanks to a single term limit, and usually departs with low approval ratings no matter how promising the candidate seemed. In Yoon’s case, South Koreans appear to have skipped directly to the “low approval” part faster than nearly any of his predecessors.

Asia Times in July suggested Moon never really recovered from his controversial pledge to relocate the South Korean presidential office and open the traditional “Blue House” residence to the public — an initiative Yoon said would bring government closer to the people, but which evidently struck many of his constituents as undignified and a waste of public money.

Yoon also did himself no favors by holding unscripted press conferences that made him look unprofessional and prone to gaffes. The South Korean economy soured again due to high fuel prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, youthful first lady Kim Kun-hee was accused of giving public offices away to cronies, and Yoon simply does not project the aura of confident authority South Koreans like to see in a chief executive.

As one voter who supported Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in put it: “He talks badly, he walks like a gangster and his wife is an embarrassment!”