Lula far ahead in Brazil election home stretch

SAO PAULO, Brazil, Oct 22 (Reuters) President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has a big lead over his rival in the polls a week before the October 29 final vote in Brazil's presidential election. But a week in Brazilian politics is a long time.

Two more presidential debates are scheduled -- the third on Monday night and the last on Friday. The Federal Police also said that they would release new facts this week on the ''dossiergate'' scandal that cost Lula a first-round win.

Lula was expected to win outright on Oct. 1 up to the eve of election day, when the latest of several scandals to batter the government reached a crescendo in the local media.

The so-called dossiergate scandal broke two months ago when members of the presidents Workers' Party were nabbed with 1.7 million reais (800,000 dollar) in illegal cash to pay for a dossier that would smear Lula's rival Geraldo Alckmin and other opposition candidates running for lesser offices.

After pictures of the illegal cash were played on the front pages the day before the election, the vote showed Alckmin had trimmed Lula's lead to 7 percentage points from 16 points three weeks earlier.

Then after forcing the second round, Alckmin appeared to have Lula on his heels in the October 9 debate when he asked bluntly, ''Mr. President, where did the money come from?'' Lula has since won votes back, however. Most of those in his campaign team that were implicated in dossiergate have resigned or been expelled from the party, helping distance Lula from the scandal and appear to be weeding out the bad seeds.

He also attacked Alckmin, saying his rival would privatize big state-run companies Petrobras and Banco do Brasil and cut social services that pulled millions of Brazil's 50 million poor out of poverty.

Lula widened his lead in a poll on Friday to 24 points.

Political analysts such as David Fleischer at the University of Brasilia say many supporters of the lesser-known candidates Heloisa Helena and Cristovam Buarque in the first round are drifting back to Lula, as well as other voters who wanted to deliver a stern message to him in that round.

At least two more straw polls are scheduled this week, one on Tuesday and a second on Thursday.

The effects of the scandal have largely worn off, but the investigation of the dossier scandal may still provide the opposition with new fodder to attack Lula this week.

Alckmin remains confident. ''The poll that matters is Sunday, the 29th,'' he said today while campaigning.

REUTERS PDS KP0323