Brazil faces final stretch of a tough presidential campaign

On October 30, Brazil will have a new president. The electoral battle between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva is going into its last week as tensions and bad blood grow between both candidates' teams.

The former president is going into his final sprint with a slight lead according to the polls. The latest poll published by Datafolha, on Thursday, October 19, gives Lula around 49%, compared to Bolsonaro's 45%. The margin of error is 2%, according to the polling institute, so it could even be a "technical tie," according to the company's press release. These numbers are far from the 58%-38% predicted by experts less than a month ago if both contenders made it to the second round.

Sex, insults and banned videos

If the first round, when other candidates participated, was a brawl, the second round turned into a full on bar fight. At the beginning of the campaign for the final vote the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had to ban Lula's team from broadcasting a video in which they called Bolsonaro a "cannibal" by showing an old interview that was "taken out of context" of the president when he was still a congressman.

Subsequently, the televised face-to-face between the two candidates was a full blown circus full of insults and accusations. Lula called his rival a "little dictator," a "liar" and "brash" while Bolsonaro insisted that his predecessor is "a national disgrace" a "thief," the "head of a criminal organization" and a friend of South American dictators.

Pandemic vs corruption

In addition, there was a very tense moment when Lula echoed accusations of pederasty against his rival, following colloquial statements that could imply that he was attracted to 14-year-old Venezuelan prostitutes. The TSE again banned the broadcast of these videos and Bolsonaro hastened to clarify indignantly: "He accused me of pedophilia, targeting the most sacred of my convictions, which is the defense of the family and children!"

Politically, Lula again criticized the president's management of the pandemic. "No government in the world made pandemic jokes at the level you did or offered a remedy that was useless. This man is responsible for at least 400,000 people who died because of his negligence and refusal to vaccinate. More than half of the deaths could have been avoided," he stressed. In response, Bolsonaro recalled the former president's words about Covid: "It was you who said that grace to God, nature created Covid" and "Brazil is the country that vaccinated the most in the world and the fastest."

18 billion stolen from Petrobras

In addition, Bolsonaro went back to the scandal that landed Lula in prison: Petrobras. "Petrobras was the biggest corruption scandal of humanity. They stole 90 billion reais (about $18 billion). You stuck the money up your ass and shared it out with friends." Lula acknowledged that the theft existed, but stressed that if it came to light it was precisely because of the transparency of his government.

The president declined to participate in the second televised debate scheduled for this second round citing scheduling problems, something according to Bolsonaro, is due to the fact that Lula "is impotent, yes. I think when I put my hands behind his back, he got the shivers," 360 News reports.

Bolsonaro's economic achievements

In recent days, Bolsonaro has focused his campaign of boasting about his economic achievements "despite the pandemic" and boasting about Brazil's recovery thanks to his administration. Socially, he presents himself as the defender of the family and conservative values, as opposed to Lula's pro-gender ideology program.

Lula proclaims himself protector of the poor

Lula accuses Bolsonaro of not caring about the poor, whom he placed at the center of his mandate. "We have the largest social inclusion policy in Brazil. People started earning more, the minimum wage increased every year. We created Pronaf Mulher, Minha Casa Minha Vida, the house was in the woman's name. We reversed the logic that the poor could not move up socially," he pointed out.