Time.news – Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva is again president of Brazil. Twelve years after his second term ended, the former trade unionist and leftist leader defeated former president Jair Bolsonaro.
According to the electoral commission, Lula obtained 50.77% of the votes, with 49.23% for Bolsonaro.
The last few hours have been marked by controversy over hundreds of roadblocks implemented by the highway police, particularly in the north-east, the stronghold of the candidate of the Workers’ Party. For the head of the Higher Electoral Court, Alexandre de Moraes, there were delays but no one was prevented from voting.
About 156.4 million Brazilians are called to the polls to choose between the continuation of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and the return to power of former progressive president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The two candidates faced off in a second round of elections for which the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), according to the latest polls, was the favorite with an advantage between four and seven percentage points.
Voting took place in 5,570 cities across the country and in 181 locations abroad. Both candidates, who split the electorate as never before in Brazil’s recent history, hurried to the last minute of Saturday to end a fierce two-and-a-half-month campaign.
Offenses and insults in the last hours of the election campaign
It was a challenge to the sword, with mutual accusations of lying, the last televised debate before the ballot, Sunday, between Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The two tried to capture the electorate of the undecided, challenging each other on key issues from the economy to abortion, but also discussing the pandemic, the environment and international relations. The dialectical challenge showed two candidates who were more prepared than in previous debates and who gave much more calculated answers than the more thorny questions.
The tension – in the Globo TV studios, the most popular Brazilian broadcaster – was palpable right from the start when Bolsonaro invited Lula to stand by him and the former president replied that he did not want to be near him. Bolsonaro repeatedly accused Lula of lying during the election campaign (“Will I have to exorcise him to make him stop lying?” He asked at one point) and also berated him for the corruption scandals that have clouded his government and that of his’ dolphin, Dilma Rousseff.
– Some truths straight from the studios of our wonderful Rede Globo! Good evening everyone! pic.twitter.com/wgpIfUvQKX
— Jair M. Bolsonaro 2️⃣2️⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) October 29, 2022
To respond to Bolsonaro’s provocations, Lula addressed spectators three times to “apologize” for the lack of proposals. Then the candidates accused each other of being in favor of abortion: Lula read a speech from 1992 in which the president, as a deputy, defended in Congress the use of contraceptive pills, defined as “abortion pills” by the candidate of the PT.
“You are a staunch abortionist. You have no respect for life“, replied the other, visibly nervous after the accusation; and then raised his arms to the sky, ideally turned to God, winking at the evangelical electorate. Lula contested the purchase of 35,000 tablets from his rival. of Viagra for the army Bolsonaro defended himself by saying that “it is used for the treatment of the prostate”, and then asked him point blank, blatantly ignored, “Do you use Viagra?”.
Lula accused his rival mainly of the impoverishment of the population in the last four years and of the questionable management of the pandemic, which led Brazil to record 690 thousand deaths from Covid-19: “One day you will have to pay for the nearly 300,000 people who have died due to the delay in the immunization process“he said, recalling that Bolsonaro had delayed the decision to buy the vaccines and has long refused to recognize the severity of the disease. Lula also accused Bolsonaro of isolating Brazil from the rest of the world, which replied that” he speaks with all”.
But the most heated moment of the debate was probably the one in which there was talk of the arrest last Sunday of the former deputy, Roberto Jefferson, an ally of Bolsonaro, who he threw grenades and fired dozens of rifle rounds at police officers who were trying to stop him. Lula took the opportunity to question the liberalization policy of arms sales promoted by the far-right leader, assuring that “the beneficiaries of this policy are organized crime”.
Do you know what Bolsonaro’s model of peaceful citizen is? Roberto Jefferson, armed to the teeth, shooting at the Federal Police. #LulaNaGlobo #DebateNaGlob
— Lula 13 (@LulaOficial) October 29, 2022
Bolsonaro used the security issue to argue that Lula visited a favela in Rio de Janeiro to hold a demonstration “with the permission of the drug traffickers”. The former president took up the gauntlet and claimed to be “the only head of state with the courage to enter a favela“, to meet the” extraordinary people “who live in such poor areas.
In her last minute, Lula called for a vote to “restore harmony” in the country, assuring that Brazil “probably” had its best time during its administration: “There was no hatred. The culture worked, there was no hate. ‘education worked, salaries have increased … we can rebuild this country “.
Bolsonaro took advantage of the final lines to defend more conservative values, claiming that his opponents defend drug liberalization and the legalization of abortion; and concluded by repeating the slogan of his electoral campaign: “IBrazil first of all, God first of all“.