RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva widened his lead to 20 points less than two weeks before the October 29 presidential runoff, an opinion poll showed on Tuesday as the impact of a political scandal seemed to be wearing off.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (L) raises his arms next to Brazilian boxer Acelino Popo Freitas (R) as Brazilian Sports Minister Orlando Silva watches during a meeting with Brazilian artists, intellectuals and sportsmen in a campaign for re-election in Rio de Janeiro October 17, 2006. Lula faces rival Geraldo Alckmin in a run-off vote for the presidency on October 29. [Reuters]

The recent scandal over a dossier to smear opposition candidates involving Lula's Workers' Party prevented him from winning the first round on October 1, and rival Geraldo Alckmin has since stepped up attacks on Lula to little avail so far.

A survey by the Datafolha polling firm showed Lula, Brazil's first working-class president who has huge support from the country's poor, would win 60 percent of the valid votes, compared with 56 percent in a poll released last Wednesday.

Alckmin, a former Sao Paulo state governor and a centrist favored by many business leaders, garnered 40 percent of valid votes in the opinion poll, down from 44 percent last week. The poll, carried out on Monday and Tuesday, surveyed 7,130 voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

In the first round of voting on October 1, Lula captured 48.6 percent of votes versus Alckmin's 41.6 percent.

"Lula's campaign calls on people not to swap something certain, which they have with this government, for dubious, and that seems to be working," said Carlos Lopes, a political analyst with the Santafe Ideias e Communicacao consultancy firm.

Social welfare for the poor and tame inflation are among the strengths of Lula's government, although the opposition says economic growth has been only modest.

Brazil's Central Bank last month cut its 2006 growth forecast to 3.5 percent from 4 percent, and Brazil lags other emerging countries, including its Latin American neighbors.

"As for Alckmin... it looks more and more like he needs a new scandal to be able to recover in polls," Lopes added.

Both candidates campaigned Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, with Lula telling his supporters not to trust the opposition, which he says has plans to carry out "predatory" privatizations and layoffs and cut welfare programs.

"Their history is predatory, all they know is sell (state property)," Lula said during a rally in downtown Rio.

Alckmin denies such plans and says the government is using such claims to distract attention from the scandal.

"The only enterprise I want to put an end to is the enterprise of government lies," Alckmin said at a rally.

Earlier this month, the head of Lula's Workers' Party, Ricardo Berzoini, quit in the aftermath of the scandal in which senior aides were caught trying to buy documents to smear the opposition. It was the latest in a series of scandals that resulted in the removal of some of Lula's closest aides over two years.