Brazil’s right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro was riding high in the polls until the news broke of his ties to a banker jailed over a multimillion-dollar fraud scandal.
The 45-year-old senator had been polling neck-and-neck with 80-year-old President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is expected to seek a fourth term in presidential elections in October.
But a change may be under way following the publication of an audio recording by investigative outlet The Intercept in which Bolsonaro asked disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro to finance a film he was making about his father, former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
Polls had projected a Bolsonaro-Lula tie in the second round, giving a slight advantage to the right-wing hopeful.
Now, his ratings appear to have dwindled, with one poll putting the right-wing candidate seven points behind leftist Lula.
Vorcaro was the major shareholder in the small private Master Bank that collapsed last year, sparking a major fraud investigation that has rattled the highest echelons of power in Latin America’s largest economy.
