A rough ride for Rousseff

BEFORE THE PROTESTS in June Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT) seemed a shoo-in for a second presidential term after the elections in October 2014. Back in March this year 65% of voters approved of her government, a better mid-term showing than for either Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the architect of the inflation-busting Real Plan in the 1990s, or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former trade-unionist who succeeded him as president. But Ms Rousseff’s post-protest fall has been equally striking. By June her government’s approval rating had fallen to 30%, though it rebounded to 38% in September.