Rio De generio: All eyes will be on whether front-runner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can win in a single round of voting in Brazil's divisive presidential election on Sunday, as well as whether the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro will accept the outcome. According to a final poll from the Datafolha institute released Saturday evening, the campaign, which left the Latin American giant sharply divided, resulted in former president Lula (2003–2010) leading ex-army captain Bolsonaro with 50% of valid votes to 36%. According to the numbers, Lula is on the verge of receiving the number of votes required to win handily and avoid a runoff on October 30: half the valid votes plus one.
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However, Bolsonaro, who is renowned for his combative demeanour, has frequently claimed that "only God" has the power to remove him from office, attacked alleged fraud in Brazil's electronic voting system, and vowed that there are only three possible outcomes for his reelection campaign: "prison, death, or victory."
The charismatic but tarnished ex-president Lula, who is trying to make a comeback at the age of 76, says he fears the incumbent will cause "turmoil" if he loses. This is a worry that is frequently expressed in Brazil in the lead-up to election day.
Fears of a Brazilian version of the riots that broke out at the US Capitol last year after Bolsonaro's political hero, former president Donald Trump, refused to accept his election loss, have been stoked by Bolsonaro's attacks on the voting system. In the event that he loses, Adriano Laureno, a political analyst with the consulting firm Prospectiva, predicted that Bolsonaro would challenge the election results.
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However, that doesn't guarantee his success. The outcome will be quickly recognised by the global community. Although there may be some turbulence and uncertainty during the transition, there is no danger of a democratic breakdown. The Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (UNIORE), the Carter Center, the Organization of American States, and other international organisations will be monitoring the vote.
Meanwhile, the White House declared that the country would be "closely monitoring" the vote.
On election day, more than 500,000 security personnel will be on duty. Anderson Torres, the minister of public security, made an effort to play down tensions. We're not at war; we're having an election, he declared. Four years after spectacularly falling from grace when he was imprisoned for 18 months on dubious corruption charges, Lula, the former metalworker who rose from abject poverty to become the most beloved president in Brazilian history, is attempting to stage a remarkable comeback. Lula, who was convicted of participating in a sizable corruption scheme centred on the government-owned oil company Petrobras, regained his eligibility to run for office last year after the Supreme Court overturned his convictions on the grounds that the case's chief judge was biassed.
Meanwhile, 67-year-old Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018 on a wave of anti-establishment outrage, has lost his air of being an outsider. Evangelical Christians, security hawks, and the influential agribusiness sector make up the president's "Bibles, Bullets, and Beef" base, which he pledges to defend "God, country, and family." However, his handling of the fragile economy, his venomous criticism of Congress, the judiciary, and the press, a spike in Amazon rainforest destruction, and his failure to stop the Covid-19 disaster, which has killed more than 685,000 people in Brazil, have caused him to lose moderate voters.
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In a race where none of the other nine candidates were able to rise above single digits in the polls, many voters are extremely disenchanted with both contenders as well as the dearth of other options. In Lula's native state of Pernambuco, Uber driver Matheus Fernandes, 27, said, "It feels like we have a gun to our heads." He intended to use a blank ballot. Outside of Sao Paulo, where Lula first gained notoriety as a union leader, he intends to cast his ballot in Sao Bernardo do Campo. Former Rio de Janeiro congressman Bolsonaro will cast his ballot in the well-known beach city before travelling back to Brasilia to observe the results.
The polls are open from 8:00am to 5:00pm (1100–2000 GMT), and results are anticipated two hours later. In addition, the 156 million voters in Brazil will choose the 27 state governors, one-third of the Senate, and members of the lower house of Congress.