Brazil holds historic election with Lula against Bolsonaro
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:09 pm
https://www.castanet.net/news/World/388 ... -Bolsonaro
Brazilians were voting on Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva. Voting stations opened at 1100 GMT (7 a.m. EDT; 8 a.m. Brasilia time).
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found that 50 per cent of respondents who intend to vote for a candidate said they would vote for da Silva, against 36 per cent for Bolsonaro. The polling institute interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
Agatha de Carvalho, 24, arrived to her local voting station in Rio de Janeiro’s working class Rocinha neighborhood shortly before it opened, hoping she could cast her vote before work, but found 100 others were already lined up. She said she would vote for da Silva, and called Bolsonaro “awful.”
Brazilians were voting on Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva. Voting stations opened at 1100 GMT (7 a.m. EDT; 8 a.m. Brasilia time).
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found that 50 per cent of respondents who intend to vote for a candidate said they would vote for da Silva, against 36 per cent for Bolsonaro. The polling institute interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
Agatha de Carvalho, 24, arrived to her local voting station in Rio de Janeiro’s working class Rocinha neighborhood shortly before it opened, hoping she could cast her vote before work, but found 100 others were already lined up. She said she would vote for da Silva, and called Bolsonaro “awful.”