In the final presidential debate ahead of Sunday’s second round of voting, Brazilian voters suffered “a barrage of incoherent speeches and the trivialization of discussions vital to the country’s future, such as the fight against poverty,” according to the Folha de Sao newspaper. Paulo today aired the face-to-face between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro last night on TV Globo.
“Not even Viagra addressed the final debate of the second round,” wrote São Paulo newspaper columnist Alexa Salomão, alluding to the moment in the debate when the Brazilian president ordered the distribution of 35,000 boxes of Viagra to the army declared was for prostate treatment and even asked his counterpart, “Do you use it?”.
According to Salomão, “the debate ended with zero to zero for the candidates and also for the undecided”.
But after face to face, Bolsonaro starred in another controversy. This is after he was irritated at a press conference by a journalist’s question – who questioned him for repeating false news about Lula’s alleged meeting with drug dealers in a Rio de Janeiro favela – and left Globo Studios in Rio de Janeiro in anger.
“You have now repeated again, you have repeated in the debate, that former President Lula negotiated his trip to the Complexo do Alemão with traffickers, with traffic bosses. But all the press, which followed the agenda that follows the politics of Rio de Janeiro, knows that the one who organized this agenda was Renê Silva, a communicator that the entire press has been here in Rio for 10, 12 years de Janeiro knows. So I would like to know why you insisted on this information, this lie,” asked a journalist from Folha de Sao Paulo.
But the reporter couldn’t even finish the question when a visibly irritated Bolsonaro asked, “Do you have the morality to call me a liar?” He immediately entered the podium and left the tribune while former judge and senator elected by Paraná, Sergio Moro, touched his arm and said: “Calm down”.
After being once again called a “chief drug dealer” by Bolsonaro, journalist, activist and founder of the newspaper Voz das Comunidades, Renê Silva, assured that he would sue the president. “I’m going to talk to the lawyers today to start the process,” he said.
Bolsonaro had been irritated minutes earlier when he was called by the TV Globo production with the term “candidate” who wanted to warn him that the conference was due to end in 10 minutes. “Am I a candidate or am I President? If I’m a candidate, I’ll go. So please, I’m the President of the Republic. The contestant was indoors (in the studio),” he said wryly. He ended up talking for another 13 minutes.
However, the outburst with the Folha de Sao Paulo journalist wasn’t the only one Bolsonaro starred in during the post-debate press conference. When a Portuguese journalist from RTP (Rádio e Televisão de Portugal) asked him about Brazil’s image in the world, the President said he didn’t understand the question. The reporter offered to repeat, but was interrupted by the former army captain. “If you keep repeating it, I still won’t understand. I don’t speak Spanish or Portuñol,” he pointed out sharply.