Are Politicians Trustworthy?

According to this year’s edition of the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Nordic countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway are among those thought to exhibit the least corruption in the public sector.

However, as Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, other advanced economies like the United States, Italy, Taiwan and Israel don’t fare that well.

But how do residents of some of these countries view their elected government officials?

Data from our Statista Consumer Insights shows that in Brazil and the United Kingdom, more than one third of respondents claim that national politicians can’t be trusted.

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When looking at the political landscape of both countries, the ruling parties are situated on two ends of the spectrum.

Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won 50.9 percent of the votes in Brazil’s general election in October 2022 and started his term in January 2023, holds socialist views and aligns himself more with the so-called global south against capitalist interests of countries like the U.S. and leading economies in Europe.

Rishi Sunak, who became Prime Minister in the United Kingdom after the resignation of Liz Truss as the head of the Tories the same month as Lula won his presidential bid, is a conservative from the Leave camp with a hardline approach to immigration.

Of the six countries surveyed, participants from Germany and India showed the lowest distrust in national politicians. This is especially unsurprising for the Asian nation, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi, who’s been in office for almost ten years and is known for his politics promoting Hindu nationalism, is one of only a handful of world leaders with a net positive approval according to regular Morning Consult polls. With a recent rating of 77 percent, he is also one of three scoring above 50 percent, the other two being Switzerland’s Alain Berset and Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador from Mexico.