Its centre-left former president Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is 12 percentage points ahead of the far-right incumbent head of state. Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the October 2 elections, a poll published on Monday showed.

Lula, 76, won 44% of the vote, compared with 32% for 67-year-old Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the first round of the contest, according to a poll conducted by the IPEC (formerly IBOPE) institute.

In the second round, which, based on this result, will need to be held on October 30, since neither of them will get the 50% plus one vote necessary for a complete victory, Lula will be elected with 51% of the votes to Jair Bolsonaro’s 35% by a margin of 16 points on the same survey.

The centre-left former president’s slight lead is also being recorded in other polls ahead of Brazil’s most polarized election in decades.

The lead fell from 26 points in December to 18 points in July, according to a survey by benchmarking institute Datafolha. However, according to this poll, Lula still has a 20-point lead if he faces the former Marines captain in the second round.

Mr. Bolsonaro has increased social spending for the poorest Brazilians, which is believed to have helped boost it. He also pressured state oil company Petrobras to lower fuel prices, a key driver of inflation.

Bolsonaro is reportedly tied to his opponent in the highest-voting state of Sao Paulo, while narrowing the gap in the second-most voted state of Minas Gerais, according to polling firm Quaest.

However, another FSB poll, conducted on behalf of investment bank BTG and also released on Monday, instead showed Mr. Bolsonaro losing ground (-4%), with the gap widening to 11%. Lula’s lead in a likely runoff also increased to 15 points, up from 12 points in the previous similar rolling poll.

Symbolic locations

In the IPEC poll, the percentage of citizens who approve of the outgoing president’s work rose to 29% from 19% in December, while the percentage of voters who think his government is performing poorly fell from 55% to 43%. in the immediately preceding survey.

However, 57% of Brazilians disapprove of the far-right president’s way of governing, while only 37% approve of it, according to the poll, which was conducted using personal interviews with a sample of 2,000 voters from August 12 to 14 and has a margin of statistical error of ±2%.

Two gladiators today, Tuesday, begin their official election campaigns in special places for them. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will visit the Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, near his political stronghold Sao Paulo, where he worked before he became a union leader. While President Jair Bolsonaro will travel to the state of Minas Gerais (southeast), to Juiz de Fora, where he almost lost his life when he was attacked with a knife by an unbalanced man four years ago.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters, AFP.}