SAO PAULO, Sept 21 ― 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 today showed.

The bitter rivals are locked in a battle to lead Latin America's largest economy in a race defined by a deeply polarised Brazil.

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

In an expected October 30 run-off, Lula's lead also rose to a 10-point advantage, 50 per cent to 40 per cent, 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 per cent from 38 per cent last week, while the percentage of those who see the government in a positive light dipped one percentage point to 31 per cent.

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