Brazil’s highly polarized election campaign entered the home stretch on Thursday as incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva went head-to-head in a potentially belligerent final debate.
The confrontation will take place in a live nightly broadcast on TV Globo just hours after a new opinion poll will signal voters’ intentions ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting.
The 67-year-old far-right Bolsonaro is seeking re-election after a controversial first term, but polls so far have shown him falling behind 76-year-old ex-President Lula, who left office in 2010 with an unprecedented 87 percent approval rating.
The incumbent is counting on his evangelical and business-minded support base, while Lula – who has served two consecutive terms since 2003 – is appealing to poor voters, minorities and anti-Bolsonaro voters.
The TV Globo debate, traditionally the most-watched primary program in Brazil, will be the last chance for candidates to convince undecided voters who, according to polls, account for just 13 percent of the electorate.
With voting compulsory in Brazil, a week ago Datafolha poll showed Lula cementing his lead with 47 percent of declared voting intentions over 33 percent for Bolsonaro.
– ‘Can change the picture’ –
A winning candidate would need to receive more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast — excluding invalid or blank ballots — to avoid a second, final round of voting on Oct. 30.
Bolsonaro’s camp expects him to take an aggressive stance on Lula in Thursday’s closing debate, focus on the corruption scandals that have hurt the left-wing Labor Party and insist on his conservative values ??on issues of religion and abortion.
The couple will be joined on stage by five other contestants who statistically have no chance of making the final two.
“This is the debate that can change the picture,” a Bolsonaro campaigner told AFP on condition of anonymity.
After the first debate a month ago, Lula was criticized for seemingly dodging the corruption issue. He was further damaged by his failure to attend another debate between Bolsonaro and other candidates last Saturday.
Lula has urged Brazilians loyal to one of the minority candidates – all with less than 10 percent voter intent – to cast a “useful” vote for him and against Bolsonaro.
Thursday’s poll by Datafolha, the leading reference in Brazilian politics, was conducted among 6,800 respondents, a higher number than usual.
On Saturday, the eve of the first round, there will be another, final poll that could shed some light on whether the debate made a difference.
The broadcast election campaign in Brazil ends at midnight on Thursday, although face-to-face events and the distribution of election material are permitted until Saturday evening.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly indicated that he will contest any result where Lula is the winner, saying last weekend: “We are the majority. We will win in the first round.”
