Image taken from HispanTV.

By María Josefina Arce.

Everything indicates that the battle at the polls next October in Brazil will be between former president Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva and the current president, the ultra-right-wing Jair Bolsonaro. This is confirmed by the polls conducted so far in the run-up to the general elections.

Lula Da Silva remains at the top of the opinion polls. The most recent one released in the last hours shows that the former head of state, who governed from 2003 to 2011, has 42.2% of the electorate's support.

The study, by the National Transportation Confederation and the MDA Pesquisa Institute of Brazil, revealed that Bolsonaro is in second place, although quite far behind, with 28% of the voting intention.

The rest of the candidates remain far behind, according to the survey conducted from the 16th to the 19th of this month, and which has a confidence level of 95.6%.

Another question evaluated was the opinion of the respondents on the management of Bolsonaro, who became president in January 2019. The outlook is not at all favorable for the current tenant of the Planalto Palace.

About 43% of the citizens surveyed rated the government's actions as negative or terrible, a view that will undoubtedly influence next October at the polls.

Bolsonaro has been widely questioned for his social, environmental and health policies, especially in the confrontation with COVID 19. The South American nation exceeded 28 million infected and 600,000 deaths, the second highest number of deaths worldwide.

In fact, a Senate Commission investigated for six months the government's management of the disease caused by the new coronavirus. In its conclusions, released last October, it accused Bolsonaro of committing "crimes against humanity" with his denialism and irresponsible attitude towards the pandemic, which aggravated its incidence in Brazilian territory.

The Commission recommended that the president, who also minimized the benefit of vaccines, together with four of his ministers and 61 other people face criminal charges.

The ultra-right-wing head of state has also been accused of genocide and ecocide before the International Criminal Court by the native peoples, who denounced the execution of a systematic and intentional anti-indigenous policy headed by the former military man since he came to power.

The truth is that Bolsonaro has defended the opening to agriculture and other economic activities of indigenous lands and protected areas of the Amazon, already hard hit by deforestation and illegal mining.

As the election date approaches, Bolsonaro is seeing growing unease against his mandate, under which inequality has grown and hunger has returned. The president is on the ropes and, therefore, has raised the specter of an alleged fraud in the general elections, in which he has in Lula Da Silva, a strong rival, who a large part of Brazilians support and who concluded his mandates with a high popular acceptance.