SAO PAULO, Brazil — Far-right incumbent
Jair Bolsonaro and leftist front-runner Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva held their final campaign rallies Saturday, gathering
their supporters just kilometers apart as tension crackled on the eve of
Brazil’s polarizing presidential election.
اضافة اعلان
Bolsonaro, the
67-year-old president known for his gloves-off style, led one of his trademark
motorcycle rallies from the north side of Sao Paulo to the city’s Ibirapuera
park.
About 5km from
there, Lula, the 76-year-old expresident who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, held
his own rally on the economic capital’s main avenue, Avenida Paulista.
With the country
deeply divided, tension is running high heading into Sunday’s election which
Lula is gunning to win outright, without the need for a runoff on October 30.
A poll from the
Datafolha institute released Thursday put the charismatic but tarnished leftist
on the cusp of a first-round win, with 50 percent of valid votes, to 36 percent
for Bolsonaro.
To win outright,
he would need 50 percent plus one vote.
The poll’s
margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Bolsonaro has
repeatedly signaled he could challenge an election loss, saying “only God” can
remove him from office and alleging, without evidence, rampant fraud in
Brazil’s electronic voting system.
“We’re going to
win in the first round — 64 percent of the vote,” Bolsonaro’s congressman son
Eduardo said at the rally in Sao Paulo, al-leging, like his father, that polls
showing Lula ahead are fake.
Some fear a
possible Brazilian version of the unrest that rocked the US last year after
Bolsonaro’s political role model, former president
Donald Trump, refused to
accept electoral defeat.
Bolsonaro’s
popularity has been dented by his chaotic management of COVID-19 and the
economy.
‘Very tense’
Security has been tight around both candidates, who rarely campaign
without bulletproof vests, after Bolsonaro was stabbed at a rally during his
successful 2018 electoral race.
The final hours
of the campaign, which closes at midnight, “will be very tense — all eyes will
be on the slightest detail that could tip the balance one way or the other,”
said political scientist Jairo Nicolau of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
The homestretch
already descended into mud-slinging Thursday when Lula and Bolsonaro traded
insults in their final presidential debate.
Bolsonaro wasted
no time pouncing on the controversial corruption charges that have long dogged
Lula. The Supreme Court threw out his conviction last year, ruling the judge
who jailed him was biased.
Lula, who rose
from destitute poverty to become the most popular president in Brazilian
history, responded in kind.
Two final
opinion polls are due to be released Saturday evening, from Datafolha and
fellow polling institute Ipec.
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