Reuters/Brasilia Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s approval rating is at an all-time high, despite a stalled economy and political scandals that have tarnished the reputation of her ruling Workers’ Party, an opinion poll published yesterday showed. Rousseff’s personal approval rating rose slightly to 78%, from 77% three months ago, according to the CNI/Ibope poll. Approval of her left-of-centre government was unchanged at 62%, the poll showed. The once-booming Brazilian economy almost ground to halt in Rousseff’s first year as president in 2011 and recovery has been disappointing this year, despite a slew of tax breaks and other incentives adopted by Rousseff’s economic team. Third-quarter growth of 0.6% was half that expected by economists and surprised even the government, while investment declined for a fifth straight quarter, prompting calls from business leaders for a change in policy. Pollsters say that the slowdown has not affected most Brazilians, who continue to consume more and have a positive view of the government’s efforts to reduce interest rates to historic lows, while keeping inflation in reasonable check. “The crisis has not reached the people yet and their view of the economy is still satisfactory, or even positive,” said CNI’s head of research, Renato da Fonseca. “There is still good news on the economy,” Fonseca said, pointing to a popular step by Rousseff to try to lower some of the world’s highest energy costs next year. Data published yesterday showed that the economy could be beginning to respond to Rousseff’s policies. A central bank economic-activity index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.36% in October after slumping in September, helped by the first annual increase in industrial output in more than a year. But the world’s No. 6 economy is still expected to grow just 1.0% this year, a far cry from the 7.5% expansion seen in 2010. The economy’s sluggish response to Rousseff’s policies has made her politically vulnerable for the first time in her two years as president, and she needs to restore solid growth in order to keep alive her re-election prospects in 2014. Rousseff has successfully shielded herself from the fallout from Brazil’s biggest political corruption scandal that led to the conviction of top members of the Workers’ Party by the Supreme Court last month. The politicians sentenced to jail terms for running a vote-buying scheme in Congress during the government of her predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, including his former chief of staff Jose Dirceu, are not linked to Rousseff’s administration. Rousseff, who gained a reputation for not tolerating corruption by firing six ministers in her first year in office, moved quickly to dismiss officials implicated in another scandal that broke last month – an influence-peddling ring centred on Lula’s former private secretary. The quarterly poll of 2,000 people by Ibope and CNI was conducted between December 6 and December 9.