Brazil votes — Will they pick far-right Bolsonaro?
October 28, 2018
Brazil's most polarizing presidential election in decades got underway on Sunday morning, with polls suggesting the world's fourth-largest democracy may swing to the far-right.
Polls for the run-off election opened at 8 a.m. local time (1100 UTC) for the country's 143 million voters to choose between the populist ex-army captain Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist challenger Fernando Haddad, a former mayor of Sao Paolo.
Strong lead for far-right contender
Bolsonaro was predicted to secure 55 percent of the vote against 45 percent for Workers' Party (PT) candidate Haddad, an opinion poll by Datafolha revealed on Saturday. A separate poll put Bolsonaro's support at 54 percent.
Dubbed Brazil's Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has won many fans after promising to boost Brazil's struggling economy and tackle corruption in a country that has seen at least three heads of state tainted by financial irregularities.
Read more: Is there a right-wing surge in South America?
Brazil's worst ever recession from 2015 to 2016 saw its economy shrink nearly 7 percent. The multibillion-dollar scandal at state oil firm Petrobras has left voters disgusted with the seemingly bottomless corruption of politicians and business executives. There is also widespread outrage over violent crime in a country that registered a record 63,880 murders last year.
Referring to the numerous graft scandals, Bolsonaro said: "This is not just an election. We only have two options: to turn right or left, and we all know where the left took us for 13 years with the PT."
Read more: Brazil police to probe allegations of election disinformation on WhatsApp
Derogatory comments got publicity
Despite making denigrating remarks about women, gays and blacks, Bolsonaro won broad support in the first round of the election on October 7, when he took 46 percent of the vote against 29 percent for Haddad.
He once told a female politician that she "wasn't worth raping," and has said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay. After visiting one black community, he even commented that they "do nothing — they're so useless I doubt they can procreate."
In the last few days, Haddad's campaign has been boosted by playing up the left's achievements under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who lifted millions of people out of poverty during his 2003-10 presidency. All the same, Haddad would still need a massive last-minute surge to achieve a stunning upset.
"Democracy is at risk, individual freedom is at risk," Haddad said as he cast his ballot.
The leftist candidate stepped in as a surrogate for Lula, who had initially been the favorite to return as president until he was jailed on corruption charges and excluded from the race.Lula remains the country's most popular politician despite being accused of masterminding the massive pilfering of Petrobras.
Haddad has struggled to unite the opposition, although some voters appeared to get his message that allowing the Bolsanaro to rule may deal a blow to democratic rights.
"I don't really like either candidate," said Elias Chaim, 23, an engineering student in Rio de Janiero. But he voted for Haddad because of Bolsonaro's "discourse of hate and intolerance," he said.
Read more: Brazilians struggle to escape violence in Rio de Janeiro
Fears for civil liberties
Haddad's supporters are concerned that Bolsonaro, an admirer of Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship and a defender of its use of torture on leftist opponents, will trample on human rights, curtail civil liberties and muzzle freedom of speech. Environmentalists worry he may ignore efforts to stop the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
Outgoing President Michel Temer, himself implicated in corruption, is set to leave office on January 1 as the most unpopular president in Brazil's modern democracy.
He took over from Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff, after she was controversially impeached for financial irregularities. At the time, Rousseff called her ousting a coup.
cw,mm/jlw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)