Dilma Rousseff
Brazil’s ruling party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff remains on track to win next month’s election in the first round despite an ethics scandal involving her party, two opinion polls showed on Friday.
In an Ibope survey, Rousseff widened her lead to 51 percent of voter support from 43 percent in a similar poll last month, according to TV Globo.
Opposition candidate Jose Serra was trailing with 25 percent of voter support, down from 32 percent in the previous poll.
Another survey showed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s former chief of staff poised for a first-round victory in October 3 presidential elections.
She had 51 percent voter support against 24 percent for Serra, according to a Vox Populi opinion survey broadcast on local television station TV Bandeirantes.
A presidential candidate needs 50 percent of the votes plus one to avoid a run-off on October 31.
Boosted by the support of the popular outgoing Lula, Rousseff has so far skirted intense media coverage of ethics scandals involving her party and a former top aide.
Lula’s chief of staff, Erenice Guerra, resigned on Thursday over allegations she was involved in a kickback scheme for public works contracts run by her son’s consulting firm. Guerra was Rousseff’s deputy before she resigned as Lula’s cabinet chief to run for president.
Former Sao Paulo state governor Serra, 68, also accuses Rousseff and her leftist Workers’ Party of having illegally accessed tax records of his daughter and opposition members to gather potentially damaging information against them.
Rousseff denies wrongdoing in both cases.
She is widely expected to continue the market-friendly policies of Lula, though some analysts and political allies say she may also expand the role of the state in key areas of the economy.
Support for former Environment Minister Marina Silva rose to 11 percent from 8 percent in the Ibope poll but remained steady from last month at 8 percent in the Vox Populi survey.
The Ibope survey polled 3,010 people between September 14 and 16, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The Vox Populi polled 3,000 people from September 11-14 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 points.
By REUTERS
Reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Xavier Briand
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