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Brazil votes, with far-right candidate favorite
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Brazilians cast ballots Sunday in
a divisive presidential runoff election whose frontrunner, far-right former
army captain Jair Bolsonaro, is vowing to rescue the country from crisis with
a firm grip.
Bolsonaro — who has tapped deep anti-establishment anger, but repulsed
many with his denigrating remarks about women, gays and blacks — faces
leftist Fernando Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor.
Bolsonaro had an eight- to 10-point lead going in, according to two final
opinion polls published Saturday, which gave him about 55 percent of the
vote.
While Haddad has made up ground — he trailed by 18 points two weeks ago —
it would take a dramatic surge for him to win.
“Democracy is at risk, individual freedom is at risk,” Haddad, 55, warned
after casting his ballot at a school in Sao Paulo, thronged by supporters
clutching red and white roses — who briefly scuffled with opponents banging
pots and pans in protest.
Bolsonaro, 63, voted at a military academy in Rio de Janeiro, ducking in
through a side door to avoid the waiting crowd.
Wearing an army-green jacket, he left with a double thumbs-up, saying only
that he could not make a statement for security reasons.
On Saturday, he made his final pitch to voters on social media, the only
place he has campaigned since an attacker stabbed him in the stomach at a
rally last month, sending him to the hospital for three weeks.
“After decades, Brazil finally has a chance to elect a president who truly
represents Brazilians’ values,” he tweeted.
– Country in crisis –
Bolsonaro outrages a large part of the electorate — and many outside the
country — with his overtly misogynistic, homophobic and racist rhetoric.
He once told a lawmaker he opposed that she “wasn’t worth raping;” he has
said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay; and he commented
after visiting one black community that they “do nothing — they’re so
useless I doubt they can procreate.”
But an even larger portion of voters reject Haddad and the tarnished legacy
of his Workers’ Party.
The Latin American giant’s election comes on the heels of its worst-ever
recession, a staggering multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal and a year of
record-setting violent crime.
Haddad is standing as a surrogate for popular — but imprisoned — ex-
president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who led Brazil through the boom years of
2003 to 2010, before both the country and his left-wing political project
went bust.
The highly controversial Lula, who stands accused of masterminding the
massive pilfering of state oil company Petrobras, is serving a 12-year
sentence for bribery.
MORE/MSY/1021 hrs
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Lacking his mentor’s charisma, Haddad has struggled to unite opposition to
Bolsonaro, despite mounting fears over what the former army officer’s
presidency would bring.
– One election, two Brazils –
Bolsonaro, a veteran congressman, is unabashedly nostalgic for Brazil’s
brutal military dictatorship (1964-1985), and has been accused of
authoritarian tendencies.
But his law-and-order message has resonated.
“We’re electing our captain. He’s going to sweep out all the corrupt
politicians, the crooks, the communists,” said supporter Alvaro Cardoso, 55,
at the polling station where Bolsonaro cast his ballot, wearing a black T-
shirt with the candidate’s name and a skull.
Feelings on the other side are equally strong.
“As a black and LGBT woman, I’m frightened” by Bolsonaro, said Luiza
Rodrigues Santana, a 23-year-old student in Brasilia.
“He incites hatred. If he becomes president, he’ll legitimate all that
hatred inside people.”
– Rejection vote –
The election looks set to be decided as much by Brazilians voting against
something as for it.
“I don’t really like either candidate,” Elias Chaim, 23, an engineering
student and music producer, told AFP at a polling station facing Rio’s
Copacabana beach.
But he voted for Haddad because of Bolsonaro’s “discourse of hate and
intolerance,” he said.
In Sao Paulo, the economic capital, Marcos Kotait, 40, a publicist, said he
had “never seen such a polarized election.”
“It used to be people would actually vote for what they wanted, and not
just against something,” he said.
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.
The center-right leader took over from Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff,
after she was impeached in 2016 for financial wrongdoing in office, ending
the Workers’ Party’s 13 years in power.
Brazil’s 147 million voters can cast their ballots until 2200 GMT.
The results are expected around 2300 GMT.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1021 hrs