Biden, Trudeau, Sunak, Scholz’s popularity below 50 per cent in their home

In an age of extreme discontent in democracies across the world where voters seem perpetually dissatisfied with the heads of the states, the approval ratings for the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi would make any of the top world leaders envious of him.

The survey data which has been compiled by Morning Consult, a company which delivers insights and custom market research on what people think in real-time, suggests that only four world leaders out of the leaders of 22 major countries have an approval rating of more than 50 per cent at their homes.

The survey puts Indian PM Narendra Modi at the top with an approval rating of 78 per cent. Many experts attribute Modi’s popularity to the paradigm shift in governance which led to inclusive, development-oriented and corruption-free governance and growth. PM Modi has sped and scaled the last-mile delivery of various services and schemes. The Lancet, which is considered among the top health journals has lauded Ayushman Bharat, stating that this scheme has revolutionised the health sector of the country.

As per the Morning Consult, in terms of domestic popularity, PM Modi is followed by Alain Berset, the President of Switzerland, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the President of Mexico, and Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia.

Most of the other heads of nations, could not get past the halfway mark in terms of the percentage of voters who favoured them. Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni elected just last fall, got 49 per cent approval rating according to the agency. She was followed by US president Joe Biden with 42 per cent rating. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau had 39 per cent votes polled for him, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany got 34 per cent votes, Prime Minister of Britain Rishi Sunak just had an approval rating of 33 per cent, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan which is hosting the G7 Group Summit had just 31 per cent approval rating.

While, PM Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party BJP is still the favourite to win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in India, the same cannot be said with certainty about Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party or Mr. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and Trudeau’s Liberal Party which is likely to lose if the polls are held right away.

It is not the first time that the G-7 is being held with most leaders unable to find their feet on the ground at home. Economists who study the impact of market and state policy on people say, typically this happen when there is recessions or stagflation, none of which is the case right now. Though, several keen watchers of political affairs believe that G7 leaders are facing lack of trust due to the economic anxiety following the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of Russia-Ukraine war. However, PM Modi has been able to manage well the pandemic period of March 2020- June-2022 and the impact of the war.