Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro will meet this Sunday in the first round of the presidential elections in Brazil, in which the leftist is the favorite, according to the polls that the far-right president insists on discrediting.
Two days after the most polarized dispute in decades in Latin America’s largest economy, former president Lula maintains a 14-point lead over the president and could win in the first round, according to the latest survey by the Datafolha Institute.
Lula, a 76-year-old former metallurgical worker who co-founded the Workers’ Party and led the country between 2003 and 2010, has 48% of the voting intentions compared to 34% for Bolsonaro.
The former president seems on track to come to power for the third time, even in the first round if on Sunday he exceeds 50% of the valid votes (without blanks or null).
For this reason, he has come out in the final stretch to hunt for the useful vote of supporters of the center-left Ciro Gomes (6%) and the centrist Simone Tebet (5%), who want to avoid a second round on October 30.
In this campaign, Lula has won the support of celebrities such as musicians Caetano Veloso and Anitta, and has surrounded himself with unexpected figures, such as former Federal Supreme Court judge Joaquim Barbosa, who led the trial of the vote-buying scandal in the Congress that marked the first government of Lula.
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, obtained the explicit support of the star of the Brazilian soccer team, Neymar, on Thursday.
legacies dispute
Former Army captain and 67-year-old deputy, Bolsonaro has focused his strategy on exalting weapons, moral values (“God, country, family”) and attacks on his adversary.
In a tense electoral debate, the far-right once again called Lula a “thief” on Thursday, referring to the conviction for corruption that, before being annulled by the supreme court due to procedural problems, kept him in prison for a year and a half and set him apart of the election in 2018.
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sympathies.
Jair Bolsonaro is supported by influential sectors such as the evangelical, business and agricultural sectors, but he faces strong resistance among the female, young and poorest electorate.
