Rousseff Gaining Ground in Potential Runoff in Brazil Elections

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is leading in the first round of the presidential elections and is expected to be in a close race with rival Marina Silva in the crucial runoff, an opinion poll by pollster Ibope shows.

The polling firm, commissioned by the National Industry Confederation, shows that Workers' Party (PT) candidate Rousseff got 39 percent vote, while Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) contender Marina Silva garnered 31 percent, Xinhua reports.  

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Ibope's latest poll - released Friday - shows Rousseff narrowing the lead against her closest rival Marina Silva by one percentage points in the possible runoff vote - to follow the October 5 first-round election.

In a potential runoff, Silva received 43 percent support to Rousseff's 42 percent, according to Ibope. More than 2,000 people voted in the opinion poll. The difference of votes between the candidates shows a statistical tie as it is within the survey's margin of error.

For the latest poll by Ibope, Brazilians from 144 cities voted from September 5 through September 8.

A previous poll by Ibope, released Sept. 3, showed Silva leading with 46 percent votes to Rousseff's 39 percent, The Washington Post reports.

According to Brazil's election rules, a runoff election is required between the two candidates who received the maximum votes in the first round if none of them gets more than half of the votes cast.

Voting is compulsory in Brazil for those aged between 18 and 70 years. This means, as many as 140 million voters are supposed to take part in the process to elect the new President, state governors, and legislators for both houses of Congress.

The second-round election will be held on Oct. 26.