Lula and Bolsonaro candidates
BRASILIA, 29th October (RHC) — Candidates Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro’s campaigns chose capital cities in southeastern Brazil to complete their final voting actions today ahead of tomorrow’s second round.
Lula, flag-bearer of the Workers’ Party (PT), will lead the so-called Victory Walk down the iconic Paulista Avenue in the central region of Sao Paulo this afternoon.
Next to the São Paulo Art Museum building, the march will have wings symbolizing the major challenges that the country will face from next year: work, health, education, environment, inflation, housing and human rights.
While Bolsonaro, who wants to be re-elected for the Liberal Party, led a motorbike caravan in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais (southeast).
The motorbike parade started this Saturday morning on Avenida Álvaro Antônio in the Barreiro district and continued to the Plaza de la Libertad in the Savassi region.
The day before, both power candidates appeared in a final debate on TV Globo, in which both exchanged allegations about foreign policy, the minimum wage, corruption and abortion.
According to analysts, the PT leader won the bet by being at the level of a statesman with a measured verb.
In the discussion, Lula blamed Bolsonaro for Brazil being isolated in the world and making the country a pariah.
“Brazil will continue like you, alone,” said the former trade unionist, who asked again: what will you do to put Brazil back in the world?
Bolsonaro didn’t immediately respond, and Lula reiterated that the former parachutist “has no relationship with any country in the world… he knows our foreign policy (during his tenure from 2093 to 2011) has been the most effective,” he said.
The former union leader recalled that “during my tenure, Brazil was a major international protagonist… Nobody wants to talk to Brazil and no country wants to host Bolsonaro,” the PT candidate pointed out.
From the start of the televised confrontation, Lula urged his political opponent to stop lying to the Brazilian people, again commenting that “no president of any country wants to come here,” alluding to the friction Bolsonaro has with world leaders over issues had environmental policies.
The election judge confirmed that Lula won the first ballot on Oct. 2 with 48.43 percent of the valid votes and Bolsonaro with 43.20.
Both politicians will contest tomorrow’s vote as they did not obtain the absolute majority of votes in this first procedure, ie more than half of the valid votes (excluding blanks and zero votes) as required by national legislation in order to be elected.