FILE PHOTO: Former Brazilian President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a rally during the presidential campaign in Curitiba

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has widened his lead over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to 10 points ahead of next month's presidential election, a Genial/Quaest poll released on Wednesday showed.

Iran PressAmerica: The bitter rivals are locked in a battle to lead Latin America's largest economy in a race defined by a deeply polarized Brazil, Reuters reported.

The new survey put support for Lula at 44% in the first-round vote on Oct. 2 against 34% for Bolsonaro. A week earlier the leftist Lula was favored by 42% of those surveyed, while the far-right Bolsonaro had 34% support.

In an expected Oct. 30 run-off, Lula's lead also rose to a 10-point advantage, 50% to 40%, up by 2 percentage points from the previous survey.

The Genial/Quaest poll found that negative views of Bolsonaro's government edged up slightly to 39% from 38% last week, while the percentage of those who see the government in a positive light dipped one percentage point to 31%.

Pollster Quaest interviewed 2,000 voters in person between September 17-20. Its poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

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