The two political heavyweights vying to become Brazil’s next president have locked horns in the final televised debate ahead of a momentous election with deep implications for the Amazon rainforest, the global climate emergency and the future of one of the largest democracies in the world.
Left-wing ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro have faced off in Rio at the studios of Brazil’s biggest broadcaster, with polls on the eve of the election giving Lula a slim lead , but not impregnable.
During the meeting, Lula accused Bolsonaro of catastrophically mishandling a Covid outbreak that has killed nearly 700,000 Brazilians, arming organized crime, loosening gun laws and destroying the Amazon’s international reputation. and Brazil. “Brazil is more isolated than Cuba… We have become a pariah,” the 77-year-old leftist said, chastising Bolsonaro’s “crazy behavior.”
Bolsonaro, who was visibly nervous and lost his footing on stage several times, repeatedly called Lula a liar and highlighted the corruption scandals that marred the former president’s 14-year PT rule. 2003 to 2016. “Lula. , you are a thief,” Bolsonaro fumed. “Your government was a champion of corruption.”
“It’s a one-note samba,” Lula replied, quoting one of bossa nova legend Tom Jobim’s most famous songs.
In his closing statement, Bolsonaro got confused and announced that, God willing, he would be re-elected to Brazil’s congress, where he served for nearly three decades until reinventing himself as an anti-establishment outsider before being elected president in 2018.
This year’s election, widely seen as the most important since the end of Brazil’s 21-year dictatorship in 1985, has divided Latin America’s most populous country, with nearly half of voters rejecting Bolsonaro and nearly as many disdaining Lula
President Jair Bolsonaro, at the start of Friday’s televised debate. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
Lula’s voters see Bolsonaro as an incompetent authoritarian who has wrecked the environment and Brazil’s place in the world, wrecked its response to Covid and divided society with his radical, hate-filled rhetoric. Bolsonaro’s supporters see Lula, a moderate two-term president from 2003 to 2010, as a rogue “communist” threat, whose dealings with left-wing authoritarians such as Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are derided of his claim to fight for democracy.
On Friday, Bolsonaro’s key international ally, Donald Trump, waded into the debate and urged Brazilians to reject Lula, “a radical left-wing lunatic who will quickly destroy your country.”
Lula’s supporters fear Bolsonaro – a former army captain who admires the dictatorship and has hinted he will challenge a result he sees as “abnormal” – could spark a Trump-style upheaval if he loses. Those fears grew last week after one of Bolsonaro’s sons used unproven allegations of electoral foul play to claim his father was the victim of “the biggest electoral fraud ever seen” — language nearly identical to Trump’s later of losing the 2020 US election to Joe Biden.
In Friday’s debate, Bolsonaro seemed committed to respecting the result. “Whoever gets the most votes wins,” he said.
Chart of Lula’s lead over Bolsonaro as of May 2022
Whichever side prevails, tens of millions of citizens are likely to be torn apart. “I’ll move to Finland the next day” if Lula wins, said Dhennis Wheberth, a Bolsonaro campaigner and evangelical pastor whose movement remains overwhelmingly loyal to the president.
Henrique Vieira, a progressive church leader who supports Lula, said Bolsonaro’s re-election would give him a blank check to go after leftist rivals and perhaps even try to shut down congress.
“I think Bolsonaro’s re-election could deal a fatal blow to Brazilian democracy … he is a fascist and an authoritarian,” warned Vieira, who was recently elected to congress by the left-wing Socialism and Freedom (PSL) party.
“Defeating Bolsonaro and electing Lula is a historic task,” said Vieira, who has spent the past few weeks fighting to deconstruct Bolsonaro’s image as an “honest” Christian, using street protests and social media videos that ‘they call “the antichrist”.
However, Lula’s allies have shown cautious optimism in recent days, with polls suggesting his lead over Bolsonaro has grown to around 6%.
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“I feel a mixture of hope and certainty that we will win, but also anxiety. This is one of the most important elections in Brazilian history,” said Cristiano Silveira, a deputy from Lula’s party in Minas Gerais, one of the swing states key players of the country.
Supporters of the 67-year-old Bolsonaro insist he will win, pointing out that first-round polls underestimated his support. Lula won the Oct. 2 vote with 48.4%, but Bolsonaro did much better than expected, with 43.2% instead of the expected 36% or 37%.
Former Brazilian president and presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on TV Friday night. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
Thomas Traumann, a political analyst in Rio, predicted an even tighter result than the 2014 election, when PT candidate Dilma Rousseff beat her opponent, Aécio Neves, by 51.6% to 48.4 %, a margin of 3.45 million votes. The Neves party controversially and unsuccessfully challenged the result.
Traumann said he believed Bolsonaro’s campaign had been damaged by reports that his finance minister, Paulo Guedes, was considering freezing the minimum wage, and by a violent grenade and gun attack on federal police for part of one of the president’s radical allies. “[But] it will be very close. It’s too close to call,” he added, pointing to deep-rooted public hostility toward the PT and a spending spree by Bolsonaro’s government designed to lure poorer voters with welfare payments. A Reuters analysis found that the his administration pledged to invest 273 billion reais (£44.4 billion) before the election.
“I think it’s going to be 51% to 49%,” Traumann joked. “I can’t say for whom.”
Outside the television studio where Lula and Bolsonaro were crossing swords, there was no sign of the rift between their supporters.
Claudia Nunes, a 50-year-old physical therapist who was part of a small pro-Bolsonaro crowd, said she was convinced her candidate would prevail. “Our flag will never be red,” he declared. “We hate Lula… He’s a thief and a scoundrel.”
Across the street, Thulio Siviero, a 37-year-old PT activist, said: “We feel very anxious. We have our hearts in our hands. But we are confident of victory.”
Nunes, wearing the bright yellow soccer jersey that has become a symbol of Bolsonaro’s far-right nationalist movement, was not convinced. “Bolsonaro will win,” he said. “Lula will only win if he is rigged.”