Brazil's Lula, Bolsonaro well positioned for 2018 elections

RIO DE JANEIRO - 30 October 2017: Brazilian Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing congressman Jair Bolsonaro would make it to a second round of voting in the 2018 presidential elections if they were held today, an Ibope poll showed on Sunday.

The poll, published in the O Globo newspaper, showed center-left Lula winning 35 to 36 percent of the vote in the October 2018 race regardless of the candidates he theoretically runs against.

Law-and-order congressman Bolsonaro, whose popularity has been spurred by rising violence in cities like Rio de Janeiro that were hard-hit by the country's troubled economy, would win 15 percent if he faced off against Lula.

Marina Silva, Former Environmental Minister for Lula, would take third placed in any voting field that included Lula as a candidate with 8 to 11 percent of the vote. Silva would tie with Bolsonaro for first place if Lula were out of the picture.

Despite Lula's popularity, his political future hangs in the balance after he was convicted in July of receiving bribes from a construction firm in return for help winning government contracts. In August, he said his Workers Party might have to run a different candidate.

Ibope's poll of 2,000 people in all of Brazil's states was conducted between Oct. 18 and 22. It has a margin of error of two percentage points.