Elections in Brazil: according to a new poll, Lula maintains a large advantage over Bolsonaro and would win in the first round

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claims a large advantage of about 20 points on the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, who would allow him to win the October 2 election in the first round, according to a poll released this Thursday.

The survey, prepared by the Datafolha Institute, provides the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) with a 47% of voting intentions compared to 28% that the far-right leader would get.

In this way, the advantage of the former progressive governor (2003-2010) remains practically stable and now stands at 19 points against 21 in the previous poll in May, which then gave Lula 48% and Bolsonaro 27%.

However, if 7% of the blank and null votes reported by Datafolha are excluded and that the Electoral Justice does not take into account for the final calculation, Lula would win in the first round of the elections with 53% of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 32%, consolidating the scenario anticipated last May.

The survey, which has a margin of error of 2 points, confirms, however, the strong polarization between Lula and Bolsonaroas no other candidate comes close to the top two favorites.

In third place appears the Labor leader Ciro Gomes, with 8% of the votes (7% in May), and behind a series of center-right candidates moving between 1% and 2%, including Senator Simone Tebet, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB).

The poll was conducted between Wednesday and this Thursday by 2,556 face-to-face interviews in 181 cities across the country.

The result is in line with the rest of the polls published to date, which as well They foresee a comfortable victory for the progressive former presidentat a time when Bolsonaro’s popularity is cracking on multiple fronts.

Series of bad news for Jair Bolsonaro

The day before there were former education minister Milton Ribeiro and two evangelical pastors close to Bolsonaro arrested on suspicion of organizing a corrupt plot which included extorting mayors and paying bribes to free up resources from that wallet.

However, on Thursday a second-degree judge overturned the jail order against Bolsonaro’s former minister.

The economic outlook is also weak, with a inflation of nearly 12% which sharply decreased the purchasing power of Brazilians and forced the Central Bank to raise official interest rates to 13.25%, the highest level since December 2016.

The Bolsonaro government has has tried unsuccessfully to contain the increase in fuels, which along with food are the products that have grown the most, with several changes in the presidency of the state oil company Petrobras.

Likewise, it seeks to reverse the discontent between officials, who are demanding the readjustment of their salaries, and transporters, who form the social support base for Bolsonaro and have been hit by the surge in hydrocarbons, with measures that, for the time being, ,, do not materialize.

He also received the Bolsonaro government Harsh criticism this month for the disappearance and murderin a remote area of ​​the Amazon, indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, whose bodies were found only days after a poacher’s confession.

The tragedy crossed borders and reached the United Nations Human Rights Office, which denounced that Brazil’s initial response to Pereira and Phillips’ position was “very slow” and that “there were also comments. derogatory “by some authorities.

Source: EFE