São Paulo, 11/10/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The administration of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva maintains good levels of popularity. The latest survey was run by Ibope at the request of the PT between October 29 and November 2. The survey has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

The survey found that 43% of those interviewed said the government was good or excellent, and 40% said it was average (those numbers are the same as the last survey in September). Twelve percent said the government was poor, and 5% had no opinion.

According to the survey, the number one problem in the country is unemployment (54%), followed by violence (26%), misery/hunger (12%), foreign debt (3%), inflation (2%) and economic stagnation (2%).

Responding to the survey, the president of the PT, José Genoino, declared that next year's priorities will be employment and public security. He added that unemployment will be resolved with economic growth. "The government's position is that the unemployment situation is being corrected right now with economic growth along with more investments and microcredit," declared Genoino.

As for violence, he said that emergency measures will be necessary in some states in order to make the Unified Security System feasible. "People are right to complain. But some measures remain to be implemented before it is possible for federal and state authorities to be able to deal with this problem," Genoino concluded. (AB)