Article Author:
Reuters
Maria Carolina Marcello and Lisandra Paraguassu
Brasilia/São Paulo — Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing frontline challenger Luis Inacio Lula da Silva are , Tuesday for Brazil's most polarizing election in decades in October.
The race will be a nationalist populist with an agenda supported by Christian conservatives and a former trade union leader who served his second term as president from 2003 to 2010. compete against
“Our country no longer wants corruption. told the audience. He rode a wave of anti-Lula sentiment to power.
His supporters interrupted his speech, chanting "Lula Thief."
His 76-year-old Lula, who is nine years older than his rivals, campaigned from stopping at the gates of the Volkswagen automobile factory in his Campos industrial area in Sao Bernardo Dos, a suburb of Sao Paulo. It was started. In the 1970s, he advocated for better wages, even though they were oppressed under a military dictatorship.
In a video posted to his social media early Tuesday morning, Lula said that under the Bolsonaro regime, hunger is returning to Brazil and inflation is hitting families who cannot live on the minimum wage. Told.
"We are going to do a lot of work to rebuild this country," he said as he launched a bid to return to office. 'cause no one can take it anymore," he posted.
Lula has a double-digit lead in most of the polls for the Oct. 2 vote, and the expected second-round runoff on Oct. 30. Simulations of the vote show Lula's edge over Bolsonaro growing. At 44%, Bolsonaro's approval rating was 32%, well ahead of the other 10 candidates. In the runoff, Lula was elected with his 51% share of the vote to Bolsonaro's 35%, with a gap of 16 points.
Opinion polls show that 57% of Brazilians oppose Bolsonaro's way of governing the country, while 37% support him.
Still, Bolsonaro has narrowed Lula's lead in recent weeks by increasing spending on welfare for poor Brazilians and pushing state oil company Petrobras to cut fuel prices. This is a big factor pushing up inflation.
On Tuesday night, Lula and Bolsonaro, who will go on record for the first time in years, will do the same at the inauguration of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Demorais to head Brazil's electoral authorities. I'm in my room. Senior Electoral Court.
Moraes, a critic of the president, is leading an investigation into fake his news being spread as a political tool by Bolsonaro's aides. He is expected to vigorously defend Brazil's electronic voting system, which Bolsonaro claims is vulnerable to fraud.
(Reported by Maria Carolina Marcello and Ricardo Brito from Brasilia, Lisandra Paraguassu from São Paulo, written by Anthony Boadle, edited by Aurora Ellis)
