Brazil election: Voters turn out in polarised runoff between Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva

Brazilians are heading to the polls on Sunday to vote in the presidential runoff between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

It’s being seen as the most divisive election in Brazil’s history against a backdrop of concerns of political violence, corruption, rising poverty and the fate of the Amazon rain forest amongst several other issues.

The far-right incumbent and the leftist challenger are close after neither gained 50 percent in the first round. 

However, Lula slightly leads in opinion polls with 53 percent of support as he seeks to return to the job he held from 2003 to 2010. But Bolsonaro is not far behind with 48 percent of support.

At stake in the world’s fourth-largest democracy is whether the country continues under its far-right leadership or returns a leftist to the top job — and, in the latter case, whether Bolsonaro will accept defeat.

Bolsonaro was first in line to cast his vote at a military complex in Rio de Janeiro. He sported the green and yellow colours of the Brazilian flag that always feature at his rallies.

“I’m expecting our victory, for the good of Brazil,” he told reporters afterward. “God willing, Brazil will be victorious today.”

Da Silva voted Sunday morning in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a city outside Sao Paulo, where he lived for decades and started his political career as a union leader.

“Today we are choosing the kind of Brazil we want, how we want our society to organize. People will decide what kind of life they want,” da Silva told reporters. 

“That’s why this is the most important day of my life. I am convinced that Brazilians will vote for a plan under which democracy wins.”

 More than 150 million Brazilians are eligible to vote, yet about 20% of the electorate abstained in the first round. Both da Silva and Bolsonaro have focused efforts on driving turnout.

During the 77-year-old Lula’s last rally, he told supporters he was confident of victory and promised to “return the country to normalcy”.

Bolsonaro, 67, told his supporters on Friday that he would respect the election result if he loses, saying: “Whoever gets the most votes, wins. That’s democracy.” 

Previously he has consistently claimed that the nation’s electronic voting machines are prone to fraud, while failing to respond to official invitations to present any evidence.

Brazil election: Voters turn out in polarised runoff between Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva
Source: Reporters View PH