Brazil right-winger keeps poll lead after stabbing
Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who is in intensive care after being stabbed at a campaign rally, maintained his first-round lead in a new election poll on Friday, but a left-wing rival made solid gains.
In the Datafolha poll published by the Folha de S Paulo newspaper, Mr Bolsonaro had 26 per cent, up two percentage points from the same poll published earlier this week.
The vote for former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, who took over as the Workers’ Party presidential candidate, jumped to 13 per cent.
Centre-left hopeful Ciro Gomes stayed even, unchanged on 13 per cent.
The September 6 knife attack on Mr Bolsonaro further complicated Brazil’s most unpredictable election in three decades.
The country’s most popular politician, jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was banned from running in the October 7 vote following a corruption conviction.
Mr Bolsonaro’s son, Flavio, told a Rio de Janeiro radio station this week that his father is in no shape to campaign before the first-round vote, and that he will need more surgery in two months to repair his intestine.
Brazilian assets have dropped and the currency has hovered near a record low in recent days over concerns that the winner of October’s contest would not carry out austerity measures.
Investors are paying increasing attention to poll scenarios for a run-off, which will happen if no candidate wins a majority in the first round.
The Datafolha poll showed Mr Bolsonaro would come fourth in any second round. It also showed Mr Haddad and Mr Bolsonaro are in a technical tie, with the Workers’ Party candidate on 40 per cent and the former paratrooper on 41 per cent.
Bolsonaro’s rejection rating rose to 44 per cent from 43 per cent, the highest among all candidates, while Mr Haddad’s also increased to 26 per cent from 22 per cent.
Datafolha interviewed 2,820 people across Brazil on Thursday and Friday for the survey, which has a 2 percentage points margin of error.