Brazil's Rousseff widens lead over Neves ahead of Sunday vote

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff has a clear lead of between 6 and 8 percentage points over her pro-business challenger Aecio Neves ahead of Sunday's presidential election runoff, two polls showed on Thursday.

In the first polls to show the leftist incumbent with a lead greater than the margin of error, Ms Rousseff has 49 per cent of voter support against 41 per cent for Mr Neves in a survey by the Ibope research firm, while a Datafolha survey showed her winning by 48 per cent against 42 per cent for Mr Neves.

Excluding undecided voters, spoiled and blank survey responses, Ms Rousseff would win Sunday's runoff by 54 percent of the valid votes against 46 percent for Mr Neves, according to Ibope.

Datafolha shows Ms Rousseff winning by 53 per cent versus 47 per cent for Mr Neves. Both polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Ibope interviewed 3,010 voters between Oct. 18 and 23 for a poll commissioned by the Globo media group and the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

Datafolha interviewed 9,978 voters Wednesday through Thursday for a poll commissioned by the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.