Ex-Brazilian President Lula leads election polls

Brasilia, May 11 Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has taken the lead in several polls ahead of the general elections in October.

Lula garnered 40.6 pe rcent of voters' support, followed by current President Jair Bolsonaro with 32 per cent, Xinhua news agency.

The result, which was made by the MDA Institute and released by the National Transport Confederation (CNT), showed that the gap between the two top candidates was narrowing.

In a prior poll in February, Lula, the candidate of the Workers' Party (PT), has 42.2 per cent of the support, compared with 28 per cent for Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL).

Trailing far behind in the third place was Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), with 7.1 per cent of voters' support, followed by Joao Doria of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), with 3.1 per cent.

On May 7, Lula announced his candidacy and unveiled the seven-party alliance, Let's Go Together for Brazil Movement, alongside his proposed Vice President, former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin.

The 76-year-old has run for president several times before: he was defeated three times before triumphs in 2002 and 2006.

In 2018, he ran for a sixth time but was disqualified a month before the election after conviction of corruption, a charge ultimately overturned by the Federal Supreme Court in 2021.

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