SAO PAULO (REUTERS) - Brazil's far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who remains hospitalixed after being stabbed in an assassination attempt this month, maintained his lead for the first-round vote in less than two weeks, but the Workers Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad closed the gap in recent days, a poll showed on Monday (Sept 24).

Bolsonaro had 28 per cent voter approval in the survey released by the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper - the same figure he had in the same poll last week. Haddad has 22 per cent heading into the Oct 7 vote, a jump of 3 percentage points.

It is expected that an Oct 28 runoff vote will take place, required by Brazilian law if no candidate wins a majority in the first vote.