Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva continues to lead the electoral race towards October 2 before President Jair Bolsonaroaccording to a survey by the Datafolha Institute released this Thursday.
(Read here: Bolsonaro says he will withdraw from politics if he loses the October election)
A little more than two weeks before the first round, Lula maintains 45% of voting intentions compared to 33% for Bolsonaroa scenario of “total stability” in relation to last week’s survey (45% vs. 34%), Datafolha director Luciana Chong said when presenting the results.
With most of the support divided between Lula and Bolsonaro, these are considered the most polarized elections in decades in Brazil.
The center-left Ciro Gomes is third, with 8%, technically tied with the centrist Simone Tebet, who has 5%.
Despite the scenario of stability, with variations within the margin of error of +/- 2 points, support for the far-right president has grown in recent months, closing the gap with Lula, who surpassed him by 21 points last May.
(Also: Jair Bolsonaro will travel to London to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II)
To win in the first round, a candidate needs more than 50% of the valid votes (no blanks or null votes). Following this criterion, Lula would get 48% of the valid votes.
In an eventual ballot, he would beat Bolsonaro by 54% to 38%.
The conservative president, however, discredits the polls.
“Here is not the lying Datafolha. Here is our Datapueblo,” he told a crowd of supporters in Brasilia last week, a speech echoed by many of his most ardent supporters.
Datafolha states that their pollsters have been increasingly harassed when doing their work in various regions of the country.
This Wednesday, for example, a woman was filmed and exposed on social networks by a man who accused her of not wanting to interview him because she is a follower of Bolsonaro.
“If you say you support Bolsonaro, she runs… look how she ran, see the lie, the farce,” said the man, as he chased the pollster down the street.
Chong explained to AFP that “not accepting interviews from people who offer to answer the questionnaire is one of the main rules” to ensure that the surveys are not biased.
“The approach must be random”, within the parameters defined when constructing the sample so that it is representative, such as city, neighborhood, age and gender of the interviewees.
(Also read: Brazil: Bolsonarist kills Lula follower after political discussion)
For its latest survey, Datafolha interviewed 5,926 people between September 13 and 15 in 300 Brazilian cities.
AFP
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