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Far-right Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro has been stabbed in the street.

He was knifed in the abdomen today while campaigning for next month's election, his son Flavio said in a Twitter message sent from his

verified account.

Flavio said his father was stabbed in the liver, lung and intestine.

Bolsonaro - sometimes dubbed 'Brazil's Donald Trump' - screamed in pain after being stabbed, then fell backwards into the arms of those around him.

A shocking video appears to show him being carried away by a group of men, as he clutches his stomach.

It took a few moments for the crowd to realise what happened, but they quickly rushed the candidate out of the street.

Bolsonaro is recovering in a hospital from a wound that was "only superficial," his son has confirmed, saying that he was not seriously hurt and is doing fine.

Police in the Brazilian city have arrested a man who allegedly stabbed the presidential candidate, who is now thought to be stable. Police did not identify the suspect.

Globo TV showed images of Bolsonaro in the midst of a crowd in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, when he was stabbed.

The news channel says the politician is undergoing surgery.

Fernando Haddad, who will likely be the Workers Party presidential candidate, said the stabbing was a "shame" and a "horror."

Leftist rival Ciro Gomes took to Twitter to express outrage at the political violence.

Brazil's front-running far-right presidential candidate rallied supporters yesterday with a message of a clean break from the past as a new opinion poll showed him consolidating his support among voters.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is running on an anti-graft, law-and-order campaign.

"We're going to sweep the leaders of these parties into the dustbin of history," Bolsonaro told several thousand backers at a rally in a working class suburb of Brazil.

(Image: REUTERS)

(Image: Wilson Dias/ABr) (Image: REUTERS)

Bolsonaro then kicked into the crowd an inflatable doll portraying jailed former president and PT founder Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula, who easily leads opinion polls, is banned from running because of a graft conviction.

A poll by Ibope showed Bolsonaro increasing his lead by two percentage points to 22 percent for the October 7 first-round vote,

though he would lose to most rivals in a likely runoff ballot.

(Image: SIPA USA)

Bolsonaro is trying to win over roughly one-third of voters who tell pollsters they will nullify their ballots or not vote for anyone, highly disillusioned with 'politics-as-usual' after years of investigations that exposed stunning levels of graft.

Major Emilio Kerber, an active duty Air Force officer who is running for Congress, said that Bolsonaro "represents the anger of Brazilians with political corruption."

"He is the only candidate who can break clean with the traditional give-and-take politics that we are tired of," Kerber said at Wednesday's rally.

Next month's election is the most unpredictable since Brazil's return to democracy three decades ago.