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Brazil's Lula has 26-point lead ahead of presidential election: polls
AFP
BRASILIA
Petroleumworld.com 10 27 06Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Luiz da Silva heads to Sunday's run-off election with a lead of more than 26 points over former Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, according to an opinion poll out Thursday.
Other recent voter intention polls also suggested the leftist president was set to win re-election with a huge advantage over his centrist rival.
The Sensus poll gave Lula 63.2 percent of valid votes to 36.8 percent for Alckmin.
The survey, conducted among 2,000 eligible voters between Sunday and Wednesday, has a three-percentage-point margin of error.
An opinion poll out on Tuesday had Lula garnering 61 percent and a lead of 22 points over Alckmin.
Alckmin had made an unexpectedly strong showing in the October 1 first round of voting, coming just seven points behind Lula, who garnered 48.6 percent.
Lula's failure to get the simple majority needed to win outright and avoid going to a runoff was largely blamed on the emergence just weeks earlier of the latest of several scandals that dogged his administration.
The president's rebound in opinion polls over the past weeks has been largely attributed to his demonization of Alckmin as a politician bent on selling off state assets and slashing social spending.
AFP 26 1550 GMT 10 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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