Rousseff maintains big lead on eve of Brazil vote

Rio de Janeiro, Agency
The ruling party candidate for the Brazilian presidency, Dilma Rousseff, maintains a big lead in voter preference over opposition candidate Jose Serra just two days before the runoff election, according to survey results released Friday.

Despite her lead being cut by 1 percentage point compared to the poll taken last Tuesday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's handpicked successor remains 10 percentage points ahead of her rival, according to the study cited in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

According to the Datafolha research firm, Rousseff on Thursday had 50 percent of voter preference, one point more than in the Tuesday poll (49 percent), while Serra inched upward to 40 percent, 2 points more than on Tuesday (38 percent).

The new poll shows that with just two days to go before the election, the percentage of undecided voters dropped from 8 percent on Tuesday to 4 percent on Thursday, making Serra's chances of beating Rousseff even more unlikely.

According to Datafolha, if the election was held Friday, Rousseff would be elected as the first president of Brazil with 56 percent of valid votes, once excluded the blank or canceled votes as the electoral authorities do, compared with 44 percent for Serra.

In surveys taken by the same firm on Oct. 21 and 26, the ruling Workers Party hopeful also had 56 percent of valid votes and the opposition Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB, candidate had 44 percent.

That means the 12-point lead in valid votes of the ruling party candidate remains unaltered in surveys since a week ago and practically on the eve of the election.

On Thursday Datafolha polled 4,205 voters in 256 different municipalities and its study has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Datafolha's latest study confirms the trend signaled by other researchers showing the ruling party candidate the clear favorite to win on Sunday.

According to the survey released Thursday by the Ipope Institute, the ruling Workers Party has 52 percent of voter preference (57 percent of valid votes) compared with 39 percent for the social democratic candidate (43 percent of valid votes).

The study published Wednesday by the Sensus Institute shows Rousseff with 51.9 percent of voter support, far ahead of Serra's 36.7 percent.

In the first-round election held last Oct. 3, the Lula-backed candidate took 46.9 percent of the vote, against the 32.6 percent for ex-governor of Sao Paulo.