Supporters of former Brazilian president and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attend his last rally before the election on October 29, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Lula da Silva will face incumbent Jair Bolsonaro on October 30 in the final round of the presidential election.
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Brazil’s heated presidential race has tightened ahead of Sunday’s vote, several opinion surveys showed on Saturday, with right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro eroding a small advantage for leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in most polls.
Surveys by pollsters Datafolha and Quaest both showed Lula with 52% of the valid vote compared with 48% for Bolsonaro, down from a 6 percentage point lead three days earlier, giving defending champion into the distance the victory came from behind.
A survey of pollsters MDA found Lula’s advantage dropped to just 2 percentage points, equal to the margin of error for a poll conducted by the CNT lobby.
Most polls still show Lula as the mild-mannered back-to-back favorite for a third term, capped off with a notable political rebound after his prison sentence was overturned.
But Bolsonaro outperformed opinion polls in the October 2 first round vote, and many analysts say the election could go either way.
However, the last opinion surveys by pollsters IPEC and AtlasIntel show that Lula holds a steady and slightly larger lead.
IPEC has shown the left to be 54% to 46% ahead of valid votes, excluding undecided voters and those planning to spoil their ballots. AtlasIntel, among the most accurate pollsters in the first round, showed Lula in the lead with 7 percentage points.
Bolsonaro ended his campaign in the state of Minas Gerais, leading a motorcycle rally with supporters. Lula walked with thousands of supporters on one of Sao Paulo’s main thoroughfares after telling foreign reporters that her opponent was unfit to rule.
Supporters of the President of Brazil and presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, join a convoy during a protest against the Supreme Court, ministers of the High Electoral Court and against censorship, in Brasilia, Brazil , October 29, 2022.
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The deeply polarized characters also attacked each other’s personalities and recorded in their final televised debate on Friday night. Bolsonaro opened the debate by denying reports he might raise the minimum wage due to inflation, instead vowing to raise it to 1,400 reais ($260) a month if re-elected, a The move is not part of his government’s 2023 budget.
With their campaigns focused on swaying key undecided votes, analysts say the president has gained little ground in the debate to win the race that the polls have won. polling has shown almost stability since Lula led the first round of voting by 5 percentage points.
That result is better for Bolsonaro than most polls have shown, giving him more incentive to start the month, but the past two weeks of the campaign have brought difficulties.
A week ago, one of Bolsonaro’s allies opened fire on federal police officers who came to arrest him.
On Sunday, one of his closest associates, Congressman Carla Zambelli, chased a Lula supporter into a Sao Paulo restaurant with a gun after a political argument in the street, video online society shows. Zambelli told reporters that she intentionally defied an election law banning guns 24 hours before the election.
In their first in-person debate this month, Lula criticized Bolsonaro’s handling of a pandemic that has killed nearly 700,000 Brazilians, while Bolsonaro focused on transplant scandals that tarnished his reputation. of the Lula Workers’ Party.
On Friday night, both candidates bounced back to Lula’s two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, when high commodity prices helped boost the economy and combat poverty. Lula vowed to revive that boom period, while Bolsonaro suggested more effective existing social programs.
