Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over incumbent far-right President Jair Bolsonaro slipped one percentage point from 19 to 18 points months ahead of October’s election, a survey by pollster Datafolha showed on Thursday.
Lula drew 47 percent voter support in the poll against Bolsonaro’s 29 percent, compared with 47 percent and 28 percent respectively last month.
If the vote were held today, Lula would win the election outright with 53 percent of the valid votes, avoiding a second-round runoff required if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the unspoiled ballots, the pollster said.
Photo: AFP
Lula governed Brazil for two terms from 2003 to 2010, when the country grew fast due to a commodities super-boom, allowing his administration to raise millions of people from poverty and leave office with record popularity.
A Lula victory would represent an astounding comeback by the 76-year-old former union leader who spent 580 days in prison on corruption convictions that were later annulled.
Bolsonaro, a populist firebrand, has courted voters by ramping up welfare spending, while pushing to bring down fuel prices that have been stoking high inflation. His allies in the Brazilian Congress passed a constitutional amendment allowing his government to exceed spending limits in an election year.
However, Datafolha said the effects of the welfare benefits have yet to be felt on the electorate, as monthly stipend payments only start in August.
Bolsonaro gained 3 percentage points among low-wage earners, although Lula still holds a wide advantage in this segment at 54 percent to 23 percent, the polling firm said.
The poll showed that Bolsonaro’s repeated criticism of Brazil’s voting system, which has raised fears that he might not concede defeat and could try to foster a coup, has not increased his negative rejection numbers, it said.
Datafolha interviewed 2,556 Brazilians of voting age (16 years) on Wednesday and Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS