Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would win comfortably in the second round of the October 2022 presidential election against the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, who closes the gap, according to a poll published on Thursday.
The leftist Lula, 76, leads the race for the Planalto Palace with 43% of voting intentions, followed by the extreme rightist with 26%, according to the survey by the Datafolha consultancy published by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.
In a possible second round, the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) would lead Bolsonaro, 67, 21 points (55% to 34%), eight points less than those measured last December.
Although the poll is not directly comparable to the December Datafolha one because a different methodology was used, at the end of last year Lula appeared with 48% of the votes against 22% for Bolsonaro, raising the possibility of a victory in the first back on October 2.
This Thursday’s poll showed a consolidation of the polarization between Bolsonaro and Lula, while the candidates of the so-called “third way” continue without taking off.
Tied within the margin of error of the work, far behind, in third place, were the former judge of the Lava Jato operation Sergio Moro, with 8%, and the former governor of Ceará (northeast) Ciro Gomes, with 6%.
For the survey, 2,556 voters were consulted in 181 Brazilian cities, on March 22 and 23.
The poll repeats a scenario shown by other consultations in recent weeks, with Lula, who will try his third term after having governed Brazil between 2003 and 2010, leading the race against a Bolsonaro who closes the gap.
Creomar de Souza, an analyst at the consulting firm Dharma, explained to AFP that Bolsonaro’s recovery is related to the failure of the so-called “third way” of candidates.
“With the failure of (Sergio) Moro’s candidacy, many right-wing voters perceive that the only alternative to avoid the return of the PT to power is to vote for Bolsonaro,” de Souza said.
The analyst added that the anti-PT trend on the part of the Brazilian electorate could manifest itself “in a more robust way as the months go by,” reinforcing Bolsonaro’s candidacy and “creating difficulties for Lula.”
Adriano Laureno, an analyst of Politics and Economics at the Prospectiva consultancy, pointed out that the improvement in the health situation of the pandemic has reinforced the far-rightist in the polls, who in 2020 also launched an ambitious social assistance program to serve informal and unemployed workers. .
“Bolsonaro continues to be a highly competitive candidate, which shows the strength of the public machine in Brazil. He has used it in a quite explicit way” to try to be re-elected, Laureno assured.
“All this has a fiscal impact in the medium and long term, but in the immediate term it brings electoral benefits.”
