Lula and Jair Bolsonaro, opponents of the second round of the Brazilian presidential election on October 30, exchanged harsh accusations on Sunday, including on COVID-19 and corruption, at the start of their first face-to-face televised debate.
“Because of your negligence, more than 680,000 people died of COVID in Brazil, while more than half could have been saved,” said left-wing ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010 ), referring in particular to the delays in the purchase of vaccines, during this debate on the Bandeirantes channel.
The far-right president, for his part, castigated the “abundance of corruption in Brazil” during his opponent’s two terms.
Other debates had taken place before the first round, but in the presence of other candidates, leaving less time for direct confrontation between the two favorites, who accused each other of lying on Sunday.
“Lula, stop lying, a man of your age! “Launched the far-right president, 67, during the first minutes
“You are the king of false information, the king of stupidity,” retorted Lula, 76.
Jair Bolsonaro also accused the former steelworker of “not having the slightest concern for the poorest”, congratulating himself on having approved exceptional expenses amounting to 600 reais (about 155 Canadian dollars) in allowances paid to the poorest families. humble.
Lula obtained 48.3% of the votes in the first round, against 43.2% for the far-right president.
The electoral campaign was marked by virulent attacks between the candidates and their entourages, who did not hesitate to launch accusations of cannibalism, pedophilia or links with organized crime.
Subtle provocation
Jair Bolsonaro was lambasted on Saturday by the left-wing opposition for recounting having entered 2021, during a visit to a poor district of Brasilia, in a house inhabited by young Venezuelan women, minors, suggesting that they were prostitutes.
“I parked my motorbike on a corner, took off my helmet and started looking at the girls, three or four, pretty, 14, 15, dressed as one can be on a Saturday in a neighborhood. An atmosphere was created, I came back, “can I come into your house?”, I came in,” he said.
Mr. Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed that Brazil would meet the same fate as Venezuela if its rival wins.
Faced with the deluge of criticism aroused by these statements, the Brazilian president assured that he had “always fought pedophilia” and specified that he had entered the house with “ten other people” and in front of the CNN cameras.
Arriving at the studio for the debate, the far-right president said the past 24 hours had been “the most terrible” of his life due to the accusations.
Lula, he played the provocation by wearing on his suit jacket a brooch with the logo of a campaign against the sexual abuse of children and adolescents.
The president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered on Sunday that videos associating Jair Bolsonaro with pedophilia be removed from the main social media platforms, the remarks of the president being, according to him, “taken out of context”.
Lula would win the second round of the presidential election, which will take place on October 30, with 53% of the votes cast against 47% for Jair Bolsonaro, according to a Datafolha poll published on Friday
The second round promises to be hotly contested in this extremely polarized election and the two candidates have striven to rally political support and try to convince the undecided by pursuing an intense campaign throughout Brazil.
The various polling institutes have been widely criticized for not having anticipated the high score of the outgoing president, to which they attributed a maximum of 37%, in the 1st round.