The ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva retains a clear advantage ahead of this year’s presidential elections in Brazil, where inflation and the resurgence of the pandemic COVID-19 are the issues that most concern voters, a poll published on Wednesday showed.
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Lula would get 45% of the vote, compared to 23% for the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, if the elections were held today, according to the Banco Genial/Quaest Pesquisas survey.
Lula would win a second round against Bolsonaro by 54% to 30%, he said. The two men are expected to meet in a polarized choice in October.
What the poll says that gives Lula an advantage in Brazil
The survey showed that support for both candidates fell by 2 percentage points from the previous survey in December, as well as that of the former anti-corruption judge. Sergio Moro, in third place, who dropped one point, to 9%, in the intention to vote.
As cases of COVID-19 in Brazil with the spread of the omicron variant, the survey found that 72% of respondents are in favor of vaccinating children, which is opposed by a skeptic of vaccines like Bolsonaro.
Read also: They ask Bolsonaro to retract his criticism of coronavirus vaccines
Bolsonaro’s negative rating figures remain unchanged at the 50% of voters who think his government is bad or terrible, especially among women (55% vs. 45% of men).
Likewise, 73% of those surveyed think that Bolsonaro it has done a poor job of fighting inflation, which hit a six-year high of more than 10% in 2021, government data showed on Tuesday.
Quaest surveyed 2,000 voters between January 6 and 9 in their homes in 120 cities. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
