Sao Paulo - Former Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leads in the first presidential poll
published since an appeals court upheld his conviction on
corruption charges, a decision which is likely to knock him out
of contention for the October election.
The Datafolha survey published on Wednesday in the Folha de
S.Paulo newspaper shows that if Lula cannot run, right-wing
candidate Jair Bolsonaro would take the lead and make it to the
second round.
The poll showed that Bolsonaro would lose badly in a
second-round vote to environmentalist and two-time presidential
hopeful Marina Silva, and be in a second-round dead heat with
likely center-right candidate Geraldo Alckmin, the governor of
Sao Paulo state.
If Lula is not allowed to run by the courts, a record 32
percent of Brazilians polled by Datafolha said they would vote
for no one in the presidential race.
Showing widespread contempt for a political class engulfed
by kickback scandals since 2014, while Lula leads in the polls,
he also has by far the highest rejection rate among voters, at
40 percent.
Lula runs
The survey showed that Lula, as the former president is
known, would receive 34 percent of the first-round vote if he
can run, compared with 16 percent for right-wing candidate Jair
Bolsonaro and 8 percent for Marina Silva.
The poll also indicated that Lula would beat all other
likely candidates in a second-round runoff race, required if no
single candidate wins a majority of the vote in the first round.
If Lula does not run, Bolsonaro would get 18 percent of
first-round vote while Marina Silva would get 13 percent and
Gomes 10 percent. TV presenter Luciano Huck and Alckmin would
each get 8 percent of the votes without Lula.
The Datafolha interviews were conducted on Jan. 29-30, a few
days after three appellate court judges voted to uphold Lula's
convictions on taking bribes and money laundering.
Lula, Brazil's first working-class leader, held office from
2003 to 2010. He remains free pending future appeals.
Datafolha interviewed 2 826 people across Brazil. The margin
of error is two percentage points.