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Brazilians Vote Today in First Presidential Election Since ’60

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

After nearly three decades without voting for a president, Brazilians go to the polls today in search of someone to lead this nation of 145 million people out of a disheartening economic and social morass.

It will be the first popular presidential election since 1960 in Latin America’s biggest country.

According to a public opinion survey published Tuesday, the leading candidate is centrist reformer Fernando Collor de Mello, 40. But he is unlikely to win the absolute majority needed to avoid a December runoff against the No. 2 finisher. Three candidates of the left and center-left are battling for second place.

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Dominant themes in the campaign have been the country’s crippling inflation, economic stagnation, widespread poverty, frightening urban crime, government inefficiency and official corruption.

Although leftists label Collor as a right-winger, polls show that his greatest support comes from the poorest classes. In the survey published Tuesday by the Brazilian affiliate of Gallup, he was favored by 27% of those interviewed.

While that is down from the more than 40% favoring him in early September, he still had more than twice the percentage given to any other contender. The latest Gallup survey showed:

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-- Leftist candidate Luis Inacio da Silva, 44, known by the nickname “Lula,” with 13.1%.

-- Left-leaning populist Leonel Brizola, 67, with 12.7%.

-- And center-leftist Mario Covas, 59, with 11%.

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