The 14 Most Disliked Leaders in the World

Conservative Party member Rishi Sunak, 42, was the U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer before winning enough support from the House of Commons to become prime minister on Oct. 25, replacing Mary Elizabeth Truss who resigned after only 50 days in office amid a credibility crisis. Before assuming his new role, Sunak’s net favorability rating fell to negative 18 points in an April IPsos poll, his lowest approval rating since becoming chancellor because of widespread negative perceptions about the state of the country.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval rating fell to 39% in a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted in mid-October and released a day before the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Poll respondents cited the economy as the biggest problem facing the country. Biden, 79, served as U.S. senator for 36 years before becoming President Barack Obama’s vice president and defeating incumbent President Donald Trump by 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.

A national poll from Abacus Data in July found that only a third of Canadians believe their country is headed in the right direction, and 51% of respondents said they disapproved of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s performance, the highest score since he took office in November 2015. Trudeau, 50, is a member of the Liberal Party and has maintained his position as prime minister through two federal election cycles, in 2019 and 2021.

Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, 47, took office in October 2020 after an agreement among seven parties ended 16 months without a fully functional government. The struggles to form a federal government underscore a divide among Belgians. De Croo, a member of the center-right Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats party, served as Belgium’s deputy prime minister from 2012.

Ahead of next year’s general elections in Spain, leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is facing anger and frustration over rising prices. Spain recorded a 7.3% increase in consumer prices in the 12 months ending in October, down from a 10.5% increase in August. Sánchez, a member of the Spanish Socialist Worker’ Party, became prime minister In June 2018, when the annualized inflation rate in Spain was just 2.25%.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer, 50, is trying to distance himself from a political crisis related to an ongoing corruption probe into his conservative Austria People’s Party (ÖVP). The scandal involves former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and others amid allegations they spent public funds to manipulate polls in favor of the ÖVP. Nehammer became chancellor of Austria in December 2021 following the resignation of Kurz.

Despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s dismal approval rating, he defeated right-wing hardliner Marine Le Pen in the recent election. Macron, 44, a member of the centrist Renaissance Party, assumed office in May 2017 after defeating Le Pen, 54, of the far-right National Rally Party by a margin of 66.1% compared to 33.9%. Macron’s victory this past April was much narrower, however, at 58.5% to 41.5%.

In October, the approval rating of the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida fell by nearly 5 points, below 30% for the first time since Kishida, 65, assumed office in October 2021 after winning in a runoff election. The low approval rating reflects public anger over rising prices and the relationship between Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and the controversial Unification Church, the South Korean Christian group founded by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the late self-proclaimed messiah.

Public trust in the Dutch government plummeted from an all time high of 70% in April 2020 to a dismal 30% by September 2021 due to perceptions of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, according to a study by Erasmus University of Rotterdam, three main municipalities in the Netherlands, and the research group Kieskompas. Rutte’s approval rating may be low, but it did not stop the 55-year-old member of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy from winning reelection in August to become the longest-running Dutch prime minister.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway has been grappling with low approval ratings for himself and his center-left Labor Party. Soaring electricity costs is one big issue, but local commentators suggest there is also a leadership problem because the Center Party, an agrarian political organization that is part of Støre‘s coalition party, is also facing poor approval ratings as approval has increased for rival conservatives. Støre, 62, became Norway’s prime minister in October 2021.

During his first New Year’s Day Speech in January, Prime Minister Petr Fiala warned that 2022 would be the most challenging year since the formation of the Czech Republic in 1993. He pointed to problems caused by inflation (he singled out rising energy prices) and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also warned about populists taking advantage of the situation to offer easy but untenable solutions. Fiala, 58, is member of the liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party. He assumed office in November 2021.

A Bild newspaper survey on Aug. 21 showed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s approval rating in the ditch at just 25%. This dismal score was attributed by local commentators to a German economy on the brink of recession due to soaring inflation. Scholz, 64, is a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany, and he became German chancellor in December 2021. He served as vice chancellor under Angela Merkel, the first woman to hold the position and the second-longest-serving German head of government.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s approval rating is not much better than it was in a June survey by public opinion group Kantar that found only 28% of respondents approved of his leadership. Poland’s annualized inflation rate hit 15.7% in September, one of the highest among European Union member states. Morawiecki, 64, became Poland’s premiere in December 2017. The former deputy prime minister and minister of finance is a member of the right-wing Law and Justice Party.

Like elsewhere, South Koreans have been facing economic pressure from rising prices, but their disapproval of President Yoon Suk-yeol is related to other matters, too. One reason is that he is an outsider with no established allies in government who barely won election on March 9. He has also made a few unpopular decisions, including snubbing U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her tour of Asia, seen as a preferential gesture toward China, which firmly protested Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August. Yoon, 61, is a member of the conservative People Power Party.