Brazil's Rousseff extends lead over Silva in election poll [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil's Rousseff extends lead over Silva in election poll
Source: Reuters - Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:00 GMT

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA, Sept 29 (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff is leading her closest rival Marina Silva by nine percentage points for a likely second-round runoff to Brazil's presidential election, a new opinion poll showed on Monday.
Rousseff would win the runoff with 47.7 percent of the votes against 38.7 percent for Silva, widening her lead from the one-point advantage she had in the previous survey by polling firm MDA last week.

The first round of Brazil's presidential election is on Sunday. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the valid votes, the election will be decided on Oct. 26 in a runoff between the top two vote-getters.
The election is being closely watched by investors who would like to see Silva, a popular environmentalist who has embraced pro-market policies, unseat leftist Rousseff and end 12 years of Workers' Party rule.

In a first round vote, Rousseff would take 40.4 percent of the votes and environmentalist Silva 25.2 percent, the MDA poll showed. That compares with 36 percent for Rousseff and 27 percent for Silva in the previous MDA poll. Support for centrist candidate Aecio Neves, the market favorite stuck in third place, has risen to 19.8 percent from 17.6 percent last week.

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