Lula still leads in polls:

People place candles and pray at the site where councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Pedro Gomes were killed a month earlier, during a protest in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on April 14. Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to demand answers in

the death of Franco, whose slaying is seen by her backers as a political assassination. (AP)

Most Peruvians could not name Vizcarra two weeks before he was thrust into office in Peru’s worst political crisis in nearly two decades. A civil engineer by training, Vizcarra had been doubling as vice president and Peru’s ambassador to Canada.

Vizcarra has risen to power amid high frustration with elected officials following a graft scandal involving the Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht that has tainted most of the political class. (RTRS)

But despite 7.5 million Guatemalans being summoned to the ballot box, the vote was marked by low turnout.

The border disagreement, whose roots go back two centuries, has seen tensions spike from time to time. Two years ago Guatemala mobilized 3,000 troops along the densely forested unmarked border zone after an incident in which a Guatemalan teenager was fatally shot. (AFP)

Even imprisonment hasn’t knocked former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva out of the lead in Brazil’s presidential race.

A poll released Sunday by the Datafolha institute shows the center-leftist with a 2-1 advantage over his nearest rival under one election scenario.

It’s the first survey of Brazilians since da Silva’s April 7 jailing on corruption and money laundering charges.

He is appealing the conviction, but it could lead electoral courts to rule him ineligible for the ballot. (AP)