As per the latest reports Brazil’s acrimonious presidential race will go to a second round after the former president Lula da Silva failed to secure the overall majority he needed to avoid a run-off with incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
The fight was between the two juggernauts, right-wing hardliner Jair Bolsonaro, the incumbent President of the Liberal Party, and Lula de Silva, the former President of the Left-wing Workers Party whose conviction in corruption and money laundering have recently been annulled by the Supreme Court.
Brazil voted on October 2nd, to elect her next President and Vice President.
In a money laundering case former President Lula was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2018 but later released after 18 months behind bars. However, he claimed the accusations were politically motivated. The reason for him emerging as the greatest threat to Bolsonaro is the current economic situation of Brazil, where a vast population is living in poverty and hunger.
Lula is trying to encash his earlier economic achievements when the economy was booming in Brazil and his socio-economical schemes for low-income families. Another primary reason for the public’s disenchantment with Bolsonaro is his management of COVID-19; around seven hundred thousand people died in Brazil, making it the second highest death toll in the world. Bolsonaro also took a peculiar stand on the Amazon fires saying that Amazons shouldn’t be called the Lungs of the Earth and the Fire is not as devastating as was being reported around the world, for which he faced the wrath of climate activists from around the world. In the 2018 elections, also Bolsonaro stood against Lula, who was contesting from the prison but was later barred, resulting in Bolsonaro’s win.
Bolsonaro, a hardliner, is leaving no stone unturned to polarise the elections. He recently created a stir when he cast his doubts against the Electronic Voting System, which has been used for more than 30 years and has never been questioned.
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