Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face each other in little more than a week in the second round of elections in Brazil , which could be one of the closest in the history of this country. Between the conservative politician and the former leftist president is the next ruler of the main economy in Latin America.
The two candidates, who are a sign of the polarization of the Brazilian electorate, fight to convince the undecided to win, at a time when the distance between them is closing.
Date of the second round of elections in Brazil
The second round of the Brazilian presidential elections will be held on Sunday, October 30, four weeks after the first round.
How are the polls going?
Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over President Jair Bolsonaro narrowed to five percentage points ahead of the runoff election scheduled for Oct. 30, a Genial/Quaest poll showed on Wednesday.
Former President Lula has 47% of voter support, down from 49% last week, while Bolsonaro gained one point, up to 42%.
The Genial/Quaest survey surveyed 2,000 people between October 16 and 18 and has a margin of error of two percentage points.
The Datafolha survey places Lula with 49% of the voting intentions (without variation compared to a previous survey), against 45% for Bolsonaro, who advanced one point within the margin of error (+/- 2 points).
“The survey serves only to alert us,” the former leftist president said at a press conference one day after the publication of the instrument.
In the final stretch of the campaign, the dispute is even tighter, with the candidates striving to win over undecided voters (1%) and those who say they will vote blank or null (4%).
“We are disputing the so-called abstention vote, of those who did not go to vote (…) because the election is very close, the number of people we have to convince is getting narrower,” Lula explained at the press conference in Rio de Janeiro.
But “I am sure that we are going to win the elections,” he added.
Lula won the first round on October 2 with 48% of the vote, five points ahead of Bolsonaro.
Pollsters were widely criticized after the first-round vote for significantly underestimating support for Bolsonaro.
Datafolha attributed the difference to a last-minute migration of votes to Bolsonaro from voters who indicated they could still change their minds.
Jair Bolsonaro a few days before the election
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, again raised suspicions on Monday without evidence about the electronic ballot boxes and said that the analysis of whether there was fraud in the first round of the October elections is being done by the Armed Forces.
“Right now, as the Armed Forces have been invited to join an electoral transparency commission, this work is being done by the Armed Forces (…) they have a great team in the Cyber Defense Command working on this matter,” Bolsonaro said. on a radio in Rio de Janeiro.
The military announced that it would analyze the impartiality of the first round of voting held on October 2, but more than two weeks later they have not publicly presented a report on the matter.
Recently, when asked if he had received the report from the Armed Forces on the elections, Bolsonaro refused to answer.
The national and international observers who followed the elections attested to their impartiality and there were no complaints of fraud in the voting system.
The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) has already clarified on several occasions that the system is auditable, for example, through the ballot papers printed by each of the teams at the end of the vote, and that the electronic ballot box is never connected to the internet.
Bolsonaro apologized on Tuesday for his statements about Venezuelan minors that had earned him accusations of pedophilia from the entourage of former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, his rival in the elections.
“If my words — which were taken out of context in bad faith — were misunderstood or caused any discomfort to our Venezuelan sisters, I apologize,” Bolsonaro said in a video posted on social media.
In the video, he appears with his wife Michelle and MarÃa Teresa Belandria, representative in Brazil of the Venezuelan opposition Juan Guaidó, recognized by Bolsonaro as the legitimate president of the country governed by the socialist Nicolás Maduro.
“My commitment has always been to welcome and serve as best as possible all those who flee dictatorships in the world,” added the Brazilian head of state, who will dispute the presidential ballot against Lula on October 30.
The controversy erupted on Friday, when Bolsonaro told, during an interview with influencers on YouTube, an anecdote that dates back to April 2021, in a poor neighborhood in Brasilia.
“I stopped the motorcycle on a corner, I took off my helmet, I looked at some girls, three or four, pretty, 14, 15 years old, dressed up, one Saturday in a community. A climate was generated, I came back. ‘Can I go into your house?’ I entered,” Bolsonaro said.
In the house “there were about 15, 20 girls (…) all Venezuelans. And I wonder, girls, all pretty, 14, 15 years old, getting ready, on a Saturday, what for? To earn a living,” he added. the far-right president.
In particular, the phrase “a climate was generated”, which in Brazil has sexual connotations, caused controversy, and videos of that part of the interview with the hashtag #Bolsonaropedophile went viral on the networks.
Lula da Silva before the second round
Lula da Silva met this Wednesday with evangelicals to assure them that he will defend freedom of worship and that he is against abortion, in an attempt to win over voters in a segment where his rival, Jair Bolsonaro, is a wide favorite, 11 days before the ballot. .
At the meeting, held in Sao Paulo, the leftist leader released a letter in which he promised to maintain the free operation of the temples, denying false claims from the rival side that he will close churches.
“My government will not adopt any attitude that harms the freedom of worship (…) or hinders the free functioning of the temples,” says the text.
Towards the second round of October 30, the favorite Lula tries to get voters among evangelicals, a segment that represents almost a third of the 213 million Brazilians, and mostly supports the far-right president.
Lula reaffirmed in the letter his position “against abortion”, which some Bolsonarists question and is a concern among evangelicals, who reject this practice.
“Our government project has a commitment to full life in all its phases (…) I am personally against abortion,” he said.
With information from AFP and Reuters
