Lula Da Silva leads in polls ahead of Sunday runoff in Brazil

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen English + Agencies
24 Oct 2022 23:01

According to polls by Atlas Intel Brazilian leftist presidential candidate Lula Da Silva makes slight gains on his far-right opponent Bolsonaro ahead of Sunday's election runoffs.

Brazil's runoff elections to take place this Sunday.

According to recent polls, the leader of the worker's party and current leftist presidential candidate in Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, slightly increased the lead gap against his far-right opponent Jair Bolsonaro, where the polls showed that now Lula leads on public support with 52% up from earlier 51.1%, while Bolsonaro's numbers dropped from a previous 46.5% to a 4.62% a few days before Sunday's runoff.

Atlas Intel, the company that survived and submitted the poll numbers, says that Lula leads by 52.0% of the votes against 46.2% for Bolsonaro, inching forward from 51.1% to Bolsonaro's 46.5% in the previous poll two weeks ago.

The company noted however that the current results might have a 1 percentile margin of error, up or down, since the data was collected previous to the shooting incident carried out on Sunday by a Brazilian congressman with ties to President Jair Bolsonaro, Roberto Jefferson, where he shot grenades at police officers, injuring two, in an attempt to prevent his arrest.

However, this is not the first blow that the far-right presidential candidate faced recently.

Earlier this October, Bolsonaro spoke in a YouTube interview about visiting the home of "three or four very pretty 14- or 15-year-olds" last year in a poor Brasilia neighborhood. While Bolsonaro attempted to hint that if Brazil elects Lula, it will face the same destiny as Venezuela. However, Bolsonaro found himself on the defense after Lula supporters denounced the statements as "depraved" and the hashtag #Bolsonaropedofilo (Bolsonaro pedophile) went viral on social media, where he later apologized and his campaign managed to successfully win a petition to electoral authorities to ban an attack ad based on excerpts from the interview.

Brazil is experiencing its most polarized election campaign in decades. As tensions rise, police have upped security measures at campaign events.

The bitterly contested presidential election in Brazil will go to a runoff on October 30, with incumbent Jair Bolsonaro finishing a close second to front-runner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during the first election rally on October 2. It was an unexpectedly strong result for Bolsonaro – and for Brazil's far-right, revealed in a number of key Congressional and governors' races. Lula, Brazil's ex-president, who led the country from 2003 to 2010, was considered the favorite to win the race in a single round.