Debate between Brazilian presidential candidates Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 16, 2022. Página 12
By María Josefina Arce
The second round of the general elections in Brazil next Sunday is the focus of attention this week in Latin America and the world. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva and current president Jair Bolsonaro will be the contenders in Sunday's appointment at the polls.
Lula Da Silva, winner of the first round, continues to lead the opinion polls, but closely followed by Bolsonaro, who surprised everyone on the past 2nd with a much better performance than projected in the polls.
The Workers' Party candidate obtained 48.4% of the votes, while the current tenant of the Planalto Palace obtained 43.2%.
In the final stretch, both are intensifying their agenda in regions considered strategic in the electoral map to capture a greater number of votes.
But they also seek to attract the undecided and those who did not go to the polls in the first round, in which abstentionism was around 20%.
Looking ahead to Sunday, Lula Da Silva received the support of the candidates who came in third and fourth place in the election held at the beginning of the month. They are center-right Senator Simone Tenet, who obtained 4.16%, and Labor's Ciro Gomes, with 3%.
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, won the support of Romeu Zema, reelected governor of Minas Gerais, described as a state thermometer of the elections.
This has been the most polarized electoral campaign in recent times in Brazil, in which there has been no lack of political violence and the proliferation of false news, coming from the campaign of the current president.
In fact, in the last few days, the Superior Electoral Court ordered the cancellation of 50 false news that cause disinformation, at the request of Lula Da Silva's campaign lawyers.
The president also, in a populist maneuver, for electoral purposes, advanced social assistance payments to 20 million Brazilian families.
All attention is focused on the coming 30th in Brazil. Uncertainty surrounds that day given the constant attacks of the ultra-right Bolsonaro to the electoral system and a possible refusal to accept defeat, if Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva wins at the polls, as opinion polls show so far.
