Modi First, Scholz Worst: Ranking The Approval Ratings Of World Leaders

What are the approval ratings of world leaders in 2024? 

Morning Consult set out to answer the question, surveying people from 15 major countries around the world, and Visual Capitalist's Nick Routley created the inforgrahic below to show the worst (Germany's Scholz) and the first (India's Modi)...

Figures in the dataset are rounded for simplicity. Data was collected from December 13, 2023 to January 2, 2024. Approval ratings are based on a seven-day moving average of adult residents in each country, with sample sizes varying by country.

Which World Leader has the Highest Approval Rating?

As of January 2024, India’s Narendra Modi has the highest percentage of domestic approval, with over two-thirds of Indians approving of his performance.

This is no recent development, as Modi’s popularity has been consistently high for years now.

There were six total world leaders that had the plurality of respondents approve of their performance, including Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. One of the newest leaders, Poland’s Donald Tusk, also came in strong with 50% approval.

Eight countries had heads of state or government with disapproval ratings above 50%, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz also finds himself on the low end of the list. Scholz—who succeeded Angela Merkel in 2021—hit a record low in polling at the end of 2023 with 20% approval, tied only with South Korea’s Yook Seok-youl.

And according to Morning Consult, they weren’t the world leaders with the lowest approval ratings. The full dataset of 21 countries shows that the leaders of Japan and the Czech Republic had lower total approval ratings as of the start of 2024.