President Jair Bolsonaro's questioning of Brazil's electronic voting system and clashes with the judiciary have cost him the votes of Brazilian moderates and stalled recent gains, a new poll said on Wednesday.
While the far-right leader has railed against the system saying it is open to fraud, distrust of electronic voting machines among Brazilians has fallen, to 22% of the electorate from 27% in September, the Genial/Quaest poll showed.
Voter support for Bolsonaro has declined after three months of gains against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftist front-runner for the October presidential election, the poll said.
If the election were held today, Lula would win 46% of the votes against 29% for Bolsonaro, an advantage that has risen to 17 percentage points from 14 points in April. Lula is now within the poll's margin of error for reaching 50% of the votes and winning the election outright, according to the Quaest survey.
If the race goes to a second-round runoff, Lula would defeat Bolsonaro by 54% versus 34%, it said.
Another Bolsonaro move that drove away moderate voters was granting a pardon to his ally Congressman Daniel Silveira hours after the Supreme Court sentenced him to jail for threats against the judiciary and Brazil's democratic system.
The poll showed 45% of voters disagreed with the pardon while 30% approved of it.
"Voters believe the president is wrong to confront the Supreme Court, to question the credibility of electronic voting machines and to pardon a Congressman convicted by the court," poll director Felipe Nunes said.
"The presidential pardon of Congressman Silveira engaged radical supporters, but drove away moderate voters who had been getting closer to Bolsonaro," Nunes said.
Moderate voters are key to winning the election because most supporters of Bolsonaro or Lula have already decided who they will vote for, and among moderates 54% disapprove of the pardon and only 17% approve, he added.
The Quaest poll, commissioned by Banco Genial, interviewed 2,000 people between May 5 and May 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
