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Brazil Poll Shows Jailed Lula Extending Lead for October Election


FILE - Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves to supporters, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 5, 2018.
FILE - Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves to supporters, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 5, 2018.

Jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has increased his support by 5 percentage points and would win Brazil's October presidential election if he was allowed to run, a poll by CNT/MDA showed on Monday.

The survey, which was last taken in May, found that almost half of the leftist leader's supporters would transfer their votes to his running mate Fernando Haddad if Lula is disqualified from Brazil's most uncertain race in decades.

The Brazilian real led losses among Latin American currencies after the poll showed investors' favorite Geraldo Alckmin, the candidate most likely to enact fiscal reforms, lagging far behind his rivals.

Electoral authorities are expected to bar Lula from the election due to a corruption conviction. Despite that, he took 37.3 percent of voter intentions in the latest poll, up from 32.4 percent in the same poll in May.

His nearest rival was far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro with 18.3 percent, followed by environmentalist Marina Silva with 5.6 percent and business-friendly Alckmin with 4.9 percent.

Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for president from the National Social Liberal Party, attends a presidential debate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 9, 2018. Brazil will hold general elections on Oct. 7.
Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for president from the National Social Liberal Party, attends a presidential debate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 9, 2018. Brazil will hold general elections on Oct. 7.

Support for Marina Silva and center-left candidate Ciro Gomes has slipped since the May poll, while support increased for Bolsonaro. Alckmin, a former governor of Sao Paulo state, has also gained ground marginally.

It was the first major poll since candidacies were officially registered last week, but it did not provide results for the likely scenario of a race without Lula.

Lula's supporters were asked who they would back if he is out of the race and 17.3 percent of the people surveyed said they would cast their vote for Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor who would head the Workers Party ticket.

Another 11.9 percent of the voters surveyed would migrate to Marina Silva, 9.6 percent to Gomes, 6.2 percent to Bolsonaro and 3.7 percent to Alckmin.

FILE - A supporter of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves a banner decorated with an image depicting da Silva and message that reads in Portuguese: "Free Lula," in front of the Federal Police Department where he is serving jail time
FILE - A supporter of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves a banner decorated with an image depicting da Silva and message that reads in Portuguese: "Free Lula," in front of the Federal Police Department where he is serving jail time

Lula, Brazil's first working class president and whose social policies lifted millions from poverty in Latin America's largest nation, was jailed in April to start serving a 12-year sentence for receiving bribes.

The nationwide survey of 2,002 people was carried out by pollster MDA for the transportation sector lobby CNT between Aug. 15-18 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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