Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has urged citizens to clad themselves in the country’s yellow and green and hit the streets as part of a populist push designed to shore up support amid sinking ratings and international vilification over the Amazon.

Bolsonaro made the appeal before Saturday’s annual 7 September independence day celebrations, for which tub-thumping and highly politicized displays of patriotism will be on show.

“It’s to show the world that this is Brazil. That the Amazon is ours,” Bolsonaro said on Tuesday as he launched what officials dubbed “Brazil week” – a seven-day carnival of consumption that begins on Friday.

Bernardo Mello Franco, a columnist for Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, described the gambit as a bid to “revamp” Bolsonaro’s flagging image, which has been badly hit by international outrage over the Amazon fires and Brazil’s somnolent economy.

“By appropriating [Brazil’s] national symbols, he is trying to sell the idea that his critics are enemies of the country,” Franco wrote, accusing Bolsonaro of weaponizing patrioticism for propaganda purposes.

A poll released this week found that just 29% of Brazilians think Bolsonaro, who took power in January, is doing a good job while the number of people who oppose his presidency has risen from 33% to 38%.

The Folha de São Paulo newspaper said that was in large part due to frustration at Bolsonaro’s notoriously loose tongue. It said in an editorial:“Few are the days the nation is spared oddball declarations or questionable measures, as Bolsonaro competes with himself in a marathon of foolishness.”

Bolsonaro’s goading of Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights commissioner, over the torture her father suffered was just the latest in a succession of diplomatic howlers that have delighted hardcore supporters but appalled many others.

Meanwhile, 11.8% of the population is unemployed and Brazil’s economy is struggling to recover from years of doldrums.

The government claimed Brazil week would “encourage the feeling of patriotism in the population, [thus] stimulating the economy”.

As part of commemorations Bolsonaro will attend a traditional military parade in Brasília while similar events will be head in other towns and cities.

In Rondônia state – one of the regions worst hit by this year’s unusually intense burning season fires – residents have also been summoned to the streets.

“I want to unite all Brazilians – Brazilians who are in love with our country,” the state’s Bolsonarian governor, Col Marcos Rocha, said this week, calling on cities and towns across the Amazon to take to take part.

“Our country is independent and we must understand and focus on this,” Rocha added, promising “a very beautiful civic-military parade” in the state capital, Porto Velho.

Critics have noted that Bolsonaro is not the first Brazilian president to resort to such tactics in an attempt to garner support.

In 1992, then president Fernando Collor called on Brazilians to wear national colours in support of him as he fought a corruption scandal. The ploy backfired, however, when many dissenters instead wore black, swarming streets with their faces painted green and yellow. Collor was later impeached.

“That’s not going to be our case,” Bolsonaro insisted this week, promising Brazil’s economy – which shrank in the first quarter of this year and grew 0.4% in the second – would recover on his watch.

José Martins, a shopkeeper in western Rio de Janeiro, said he would cut some prices by up to 15% for Brazil week but would not wear yellow and green despite voting for Bolsonaro last year.

“He’s a bit lost,” the 65-year-old said. “He says things he shouldn’t say. He lacks political ability.”

On Thursday, Bolsonaro’s government released patriotic commercials proclaiming Brazil’s sovereignty over the Amazon and commitment to protecting and sustainably developing the rainforest – but they too ran into problems. A government tweet in English sharing one was filled with spelling mistakes.

CNN, meanwhile, is only airing the commercials in the US, leaving out Europe and other continents out to avoid contravening “international regulations on political advertising”.