Brazilians went to the polls on Sunday in a hard-to-predict second-round presidential election pitting former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against the current incumbent, far-right Jair Bolsonaro. This is reported by AFP and Agerpres.

Brazilians are going to the polls in the second round of the presidential electionsPhoto: Thiago Ribeiro/AP/Profimedia

The campaign took place in a violent and ultra-polar atmosphere, in which the two insulted each other profusely, and misinformation abounded on social media.

Polling stations opened at 08:00 local time (11:00 GMT) and will close at 17:00 (20:00 GMT). The name of the future president of the largest country in Latin America with a population of 215 million will be known in 2-3 hours after the polls close.

Bolsonaro still has a chance

Although polls have been predicting a third four-year term for Lula for months after the 2003-2010 polls, Jair Bolsonaro still has a chance.

According to the latest Datafolha poll, as of Saturday night, the gap had narrowed to 52%-48% in favor of Lula, but the margin of error is +/- 2 points and the polls are severely underestimating Bolsonaro’s result in the first round.

Many fear that Bolsonaro will not accept final defeat, launching sustained attacks on the “fraudulent” electronic voting system, and that he may even witness a Brazilian copy of the storming of the Capitol in Washington after Donald Trump’s victory.

The main stake of the presidential election campaign in Brazil

The main goal of the campaign between the rounds was to convince the 32 million who did not participate in the first round (21%), given that Lula had an advance of 6 million votes on 2 October.

Lula says he wants to protect democracy and make “Brazil” happy again after two mandates that lifted nearly 30 million residents out of poverty, while Bolsonaro says he wants to protect “good from evil,” family, God, homeland and personality. freedom.

If elected, Lula, a central figure in Brazilian politics for four decades, will make a spectacular comeback after a 2018-2019 prison ignominy and subsequent expungement of corruption convictions.

The incoming president will preside over an even more right-wing parliament after the Oct. 2 legislative session that brought strong representation for Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.