Lula da Silva would win the presidential election in Brazil in the first round, according to new poll

The former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would win the presidential elections in the first round, if the elections, which are scheduled for October 2022, were held today, according to an opinion poll released this Wednesday.

This firm survey Ipec is in line with another one released last week by the Datafolha Institute, which also gave the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) a wide advantage over the current president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

Ipec drew two possible scenarios for the elections. In the first, he offered respondents a list of five possible candidates.

The top favorite would be Lula, with 48% of the votes, followed by Bolsonaro, which would receive 23% of the support.

Far behind were the Labor leader Ciro Gomes (8%), the Governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria (3%); and the former Minister of Health Luiz Henrique Mandetta (3%).

That difference of eleven points more than all the opponents added would lead to Lula, who ruled Brazil between 2003 and 2010, to proclaim himself the winner in the first round.

In the second scenario, Ipec included ten candidates. Lula would then obtain 45% of the votes, by 22% from Bolsonaro and 18% from the other candidates, including former judge and former minister Sergio Moro (5%).

With these percentages, the former union leader would be at the limit of the margin of error, which is two points, to also win in the first round, if the elections were held today.

Lula, who was authorized to contest the elections after the Justice annulled the two convictions for corruption that weighed against him, has hinted that he will present his candidacy for 2022, if the PT so wishes.

For its part, Bolsonaro, leader of the Brazilian extreme right, also intends to run for reelection, although he is currently going through his worst moment of popularity since he was in power.

In this context, the failure rate for his government reached 53%, four points more than the survey released in June by Ipec.

Voters who consider his management “good” or “optimal” fell to 22%, the lowest level recorded in the year.

Those percentages are similar to last week’s Datafolha survey.

The results of the Ipec survey are the result of 2,002 face-to-face interviews in 141 municipalities of the country, carried out between September 16 and 20.