Brazilian Presidential | Last campaign rallies for Bolsonaro and Lula

(Rio de Janeiro) The campaign for the second round ended on Saturday in Brazil with the last rallies led by Lula and Bolsonaro, both in the southeast, and the disclosure of a final poll where the outgoing president of extreme right is reducing its delay against the candidate on the left, on the eve of the vote.

According to the benchmark institute Datafolha, the former president (2003-2010) would win 52% against 48%, with a margin of error of +/-2 points. A previous Datafolha poll on Thursday gave Lula a 6-point lead (53%-47%).

“I think we’re going to win,” said Lula, 77, in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest electoral college, promising to “return this country to normal” in front of thousands of supporters dressed in red who were shouting “Get out Jair! »

Lula attacked his adversary who “has no limit to tell lies” and “does not have the psychic conditions to govern a country the size of Brazil”.

Amid the supporters who came to perform a “march for victory”, Adriano Araujo, a 39-year-old civil engineer, said he “came to (fight) for democracy and a better country”.

Lula is seeking to return to power after leading Latin America’s largest economy between 2003 and 2010 and being imprisoned for 18 months for corruption before his convictions were overturned by the courts.

“Values”

Earlier in the day, at the head of a motorcade in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Jair Bolsonaro also said he was “confident in victory”.

Surrounded by an imposing close security service, he paraded in front of his supporters dressed in yellow and green, the colors of the Brazilian flag, who chanted “Mito, Mito” (Myth, his nickname).

Fabricia Alves, 36, leader of a micro-enterprise, also says she is “sure” that her champion will win, and supports him for his economic policy and “for the values” of the family which she considers non-negotiable.

“I am not in favor of abortion or gender theory, which is what the other party wants to impose,” she explains.

In a country where the voluntary termination of pregnancy is authorized only in rare exceptions, Lula has nevertheless repeated on many occasions, as recently before leaders of evangelical Protestant churches, that he was “personally against abortion”. .

But false information on social networks has plagued the entire campaign.

On Friday, during the last televised debate at loggerheads where insults flared (“bandit”, “unbalanced”), the two protagonists accused each other of “lying”, without exposing their projects for the country with a continental size of 215 million euros. ‘inhabitants.

“An anti-debate, without the slightest novelty that could change the situation,” said political columnist Otavio Guedes on the Globonews channel.

“It’s democracy”

In the capital Brasilia, supporters of the two candidates also marched through the streets. First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro took part in an army Jeep in the “Women with Bolsonaro” caravan which, according to an AFP photographer, gathered around 100 cars.

In this home stretch, Jair Bolsonaro welcomed the slow recovery in activity, with the recent drop in inflation and the decrease in unemployment which stood at 8.7% in September. And ‘this with a pandemic and a war that affects the entire world economy […] There is still a lot to do,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

On Sunday, some 156 million Brazilians are called to vote in the country’s 26 states and the Federal District. In the first round, about 32 million (21%) did not move, however. These abstainers were one of the challenges of this second round, because only 6 million votes separated the two finalists on the evening of the 1^er round.

Voting is compulsory in Brazil, but the fine of 3.5 reais (68 cents CAN) is not a deterrent.

The final vote tally could be tight on Sunday evening and increase tension and polarization in the country.

Jair Bolsonaro, who has long threatened not to recognize the verdict of the polls, and who received the support of former US President Donald Trump on Friday, apparently tempered his position after the debate.

When asked if he would accept a possible defeat, he said: “Whoever has the most votes wins. This is democracy”.