SAO PAULO: Brazil’s leftist presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is leading President Jair Bolsonaro with 48.1 per cent voter support against the incumbent’s 41.8 per cent ahead of an October 30 runoff vote, according to a CNT/MDA poll published on Monday.
Considering only valid votes, which exclude null and blank ballots, Lula reached 53.5 per cent voter support against Bolsonaro’s 46.5 per cent.
The survey was conducted on October 14-16 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points up or down.
Several polling firms in Brazil were criticised for underestimating support for Bolsonaro in the first-round vote. Earlier, far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded jabs and insults as they squared off on Sunday in their first-ever head-to-head debate, two weeks from Brazil’s presidential runoff election.
Lula attacked Bolsonaro as a “little dictator” and the “king of fake news,” drawing accusations of lying, corruption and a “disgraceful” record in return, as the rivals sparred in the first debate for their polarising second-round showdown on October 30. Front-runner Lula, the charismatic but tarnished ex-president (2003-2010) who is seeking a comeback at 76, was particularly fiery criticising Bolsonaro over his handling of Covid-19, which has killed 687,000 people in Brazil, second only to the United States.Attacking Bolsonaro over his resistance to buying vaccines and embrace of unproven medications such as hydroxychloroquine, Lula said the president “carries the weight of those deaths on his shoulders.” — Reuters
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