(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-01 10:40

RIO DE JANEIRO - A recent survey has showed that the Brazilian government led by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has won unprecedented public support to become the most popular administration since the survey was first carried out in 1990.

In a poll conducted by the Instituto Datafolha and released Monday, Lula's government was credited as "excellent or good" by 55 percent of those interviewed, which surpassed all the previous administrations since the government of Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Brazil's first democratically-elected president after the end of the country's military rule.

The latest survey also saw a 5-percent increase in the government's approval rate from the previous figure of 50 percent, from a survey conducted in November 2007.

In southern Brazil, Lula's support rate witnessed its biggest leap, to 52 percent compared with the previous level of 11 percent.

In northeastern Brazil, where the president has enjoyed great popularity, the rate reached 68 percent in the recent poll.

Meanwhile, the number of people labeling Lula's performance as "average" decreased from last survey's 35 percent to 33 percent, and those answering "bad or awful" also slipped from 14 percent to 11 percent.

The poll, interviewing 4,044 people all over the country in the March 25-27 period, echoed another survey by the National Confederation of Industry and released last week, which also registered a record high for the government's approval rate.