Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's popularity remains high, despite the charges that held the government responsible for the latest plane crash that killed 199 people in Sao Paulo, a survey showed on Monday.
Forty-eight percent of the people polled ranked Lula's government as "excellent or good," the same with the rate in March 2006, according to the study by the research firm Datafolha released on Monday.
The Datafolha study, which interviewed 2,095 people in 211 municipalities, also showed 36 percent considered the current government "average," and 15 percent deemed it as "bad or very bad."
The July 17 disaster was the deadliest in Brazil's aviation history, in which a TAM airlines Airbus A320 skidded off the runway at the Sao Paulo Congonhas airport at landing and exploded, killing 199 people.
At first, the airport runway was considered the main cause of the accident as the plane was believed to have skidded on the wet ground when it attempted to land.
The media and the government's opposition argued that the runway, which had just undergone renovations, should not be put into use because it was slippery on rainy days and grooving work had not been done.
However, later analysis based on the jet's black box showed that the slippery runway might not be the main cause of the disaster. Instead, mechanical and human failures should be taken into consideration.
The study noted that the government's popularity rate is very close to the one registered in October 2006 following another major plane accident, which killed 154 people and revealed problems in Brazil's airport infrastructure and traffic control centers.
Eight percent of polled Brazilians travel by plane regularly, of whom 29 percent regarded the Lula administration as 'excellent or good.'
Among the remaining 92 percent of the interviewees, who do not have the habit of flying, 50 percent held the same opinion, according to the study.
Source: Xinhua
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