Stabbed politician has surgery

Sao Paulo – Brazil’s far-right, poll-leading presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro underwent a procedure to drain liquid from his abdominal cavity on Thursday, two weeks after he was stabbed in an assassination attempt.

Bolsonaro had a slight fever, prompting doctors to order a scan, the Albert Einstein hospital said in a statement. It showed an accumulation of liquid next to his intestine that was successfully drained.

Bolsonaro gained ground over his rivals for the first-round ballot, despite being in hospital, according to a Datafolha poll, widening his lead by two points to 28%. His closest adversary, Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers Party, had 16%.

However, the election was expected to go to a second-round runoff on October 28 in which the poll showed he was tied at 41% with Haddad, who replaced jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last week on the Workers Party ticket.