Lula maintains lead in Brazil pre-election poll
Rio de Janeiro, Aug 15 (EFE).- Former Brazil leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains the favorite to win the presidential election on Oct. 2 with 44 percent of voter support, according to a poll released by the Ipec institute on Monday.
The former trade union leader, who governed Brazil between 2003 and 2010, has a 12-percentage-point lead over his main contender, the far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, with 32 percent of the votes, according to the poll.
In third and fourth place respectively are Labor’s Ciro Gomes, the third most-voted-for candidate in 2018, with 6 percent, and Senator Simone Tebet of the center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement, with 2 percent.
The results of the poll on the eve of the official start of the electoral campaigns confirm the polarization around the upcoming election, as the candidates of the center and center-right parties seem unlikely to win.
In a run-off, Lula has 51 percent of voter support against Bolsonaro’s 35 percent.
Bolsonaro’s approval rating stood at 29 percent, according to the poll, while 43 percent of respondents consider his government terrible, and 26 percent say it is average.
A total of 2,000 people in 130 municipalities were polled between Aug. 12 and 14.
The poll has a margin of error of about 2 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent. EFE
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