Only Lula can prevent a Bolsonaro dictatorship.

The dramatic situation that presents itself just around the corner, in 70 days, is this: if Lula is prevented from running in the election, in which he is the clear favorite to win even in the first round, the next president of Brazil will be the greatest threat to democracy since the return to democracy.

That's what the research by Ideia Big Data, published by Veja, warns.

When Lula is a candidate, he easily leads with 29%. Bolsonaro, in second place, has 17%. Marina is in third place with 10%, and Ciro and Alckmin are tied for fourth with 7%.

More or less the same results as previous research from other institutes.

Without Lula, Bolsonaro leads with 19%, Marina is second with 17%, Lula's candidate is third with 9%, and Ciro is way down with 7%.

Veja uses these numbers to argue that the PT is right not to support Ciro, since any PT candidate backed by Lula starts from a higher level than the PDT candidate.

However, this argument is flawed. It is true that Haddad or Jaques Wagner score 3% without Lula's support and 9% with it, but the poll should also have assessed what would happen to Ciro if he were Lula's chosen candidate, which was not done. Ciro is presented as a candidate only for the PDT, not for both the PDT and the PT.

Considering that Lula, the best campaign manager according to the poll, triples the votes of those he supports, with his support Ciro would reach 21%, placing him in first place, ahead of Bolsonaro, and would compete with him in the second round.

Research shows that the former president, even while imprisoned, is the best campaign manager: he triples the votes of those he endorses. And the worst is Temer: 92% would never vote for anyone he endorses. Probably the worst result for a president since 1889.

Despite all the criticism, including from the magazine that publishes the poll, the preferred party among Brazilians is the PT, with 15%.

Almost half of voters don't have a candidate in mind: 43%. But that doesn't mean they're open to candidates: nothing guarantees they'll choose someone on October 7th.

In the second round, only Lula (37%) beats Bolsonaro (30%). In a head-to-head matchup with all the others – Ciro, Marina, Alckmin and Lula's chosen candidate – Bolsonaro ties.

In other words, Bolsonaro and Lula are already in the second round – if there is one – but Lula, who was one of Brazil's great presidents, is in prison, and Bolsonaro, who threatens democracy, is free. And, if Lula is not in the second round, the threat of Bolsonaro winning increases.

I thought that Bolsonaro's few seconds of TV time and Alckmin's many seconds, which will focus their attacks on him, could bring him down, but it's not that simple. The research found that his voters are mostly young people from upper-class backgrounds who don't watch TV.

We cannot, in the name of an unconstitutional law called the Clean Slate Law, pave the way for someone to come to power who heralds a new dictatorship that has so greatly hindered Brazil's development.

Preserving democracy is the TSE's main mission, one that it cannot abdicate.