Bolsonaro, Lula Go on Attack in Debate on Eve of Brazil Vote
Simone Iglesias and Daniel Carvalho
Fri, September 30, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded insults in a televised debate that marked their final face off before Sunday’s election, with polls giving the opposition leader a wide lead.
The men went on the attack from the get-go, with Bolsonaro calling Lula a “liar,” “ex-convict” and “gang leader.” The comments drew a fiery response from the 76-year-old Lula, who lobbied his own accusations of corruption at Bolsonaro, saying the president “needs to look in the mirror and know what’s happening in his own government.”
The two leading candidates went back and forth for a few minutes, each earning the right to respond to offenses, before the debate continued. They soon resumed attacking each other while asking questions to other candidates, and were given additional rights to answer to allegations in several occasions.
“I feel bad for disrupting the debate when we could be discussing the future of this country,” Lula said later, after earning yet another right to respond to offenses.
In their final speeches, Lula listed his past economic achievements while Bolsonaro repeated campaign slogans and cited ideological themes, from abortion to drugs and religion.
The meeting, held in Rio de Janeiro and broadcast nationally by Globo TV, started late on Thursday and lasted about three and a half hours. It was the most widely watched of this election cycle, reaching millions of Brazilians just days before the first-round vote on Oct. 2. It was the theme of more than 200 million mentions on social media, according to Felipe Nunes, head of pollster Quaest.
The stakes appeared to be upped before it kicked off, with a survey released by Datafolha, Brazil’s most influential pollster, showing Lula inching closer to an outright win in the first round, for which he needs more than 50% of the vote.
The front-runner has 50% of valid votes in the first round, which excludes null and blank ballots, according to the poll published Thursday evening. Datafolha interviewed 6,800 people across Brazil between Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, and the poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
‘World Cup final’
Lula is focusing his efforts on drawing voters from other candidates at the final stretch of the campaign. He had compared the debate to a soccer World Cup final, according to a campaign adviser.
Read More: Lula Rallies Supporters Seeking Outright Victory in Brazil Vote
The former president canceled all public events ahead of the debate to rest his voice and, as he did prior to other election debates, received media training at a hotel in Rio, according to the adviser who asked not to be identified discussing strategy. The former president was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2011, which at times gives him a husky tone.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro had planned to step up his attacks on Lula, reminding voters of corruption scandals that happened during his eight-year government, in a bid to ensure the election goes to a second round on Oct. 30, said two people familiar with his plans ahead of the debate.
One or Two Rounds
An outright victory by Lula largely depends on his ability to peel off voters from long-shot presidential contenders.
But third-placed Ciro Gomes, a former governor, and fourth-placed, Simone Tebet, a senator, held their own and registered among the top performers in flash polls and in editorials in major dailys.
Their performance “complicates the late-game migration Lula sought,” brokerage XP Inc. wrote in a report early Friday.
Support for candidates other than Lula and Bolsonaro makes up about 12% of all voting intentions, pollster Quaest has found. Of those, nearly a quarter would be willing to switch their vote to ensure Lula wins in the first round, according to Nunes, the head of Quaest.
The former president would get 50.5% of valid votes, Quaest said on Wednesday after interviewing 2,000 Brazilians between Sept. 24 and 27. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, would get just over 36%. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Lula leads Bolsonaro by 14 points ahead of Brazil vote -Datafolha poll
Presidential candidate Lula closes his political campaign in Sao Paulo
Thu, September 29, 2022
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leads President Jair Bolsonaro by 14 points, a poll released on Thursday showed, with the far-right incumbent having lost momentum against his leftist rival as the Oct. 2 presidential election looms.
The survey by Datafolha showed Lula with 48% of voter support versus 34% for Bolsonaro in the election's first round, compared with 47% and 33%, respectively, in the previous poll.
Excluding blank and null ballots, Lula was seen winning 50% of the votes, while Bolsonaro had 36%. If Lula reaches 50% plus one vote in the first round, he will win the election outright and avoid a second round.
In the event of a second-round run-off on Oct. 30, Lula would garner the support of 54% of voters versus 39% for Bolsonaro, a 15-point advantage, according to the poll, down from 16 points a week ago.
Bolsonaro's approval rating edged down to 31%, compared to 32% one week ago; still above the 22% he held in December, after which his popularity ticked up thanks to welfare programs and measures to tackle inflation.
His disapproval came in at 44%, according to the poll, the same rate as a week ago but down from the 53% seen in December.
Datafolha conducted 6,800 in-person interviews between Sept. 27-29. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.
(Reporting by Carolina Pulice and Alexandre Caverni; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
Lula’s Final Sprint Skews 70% Winning Chance Upward, Eurasia Group Says
Felipe Saturnino and VinÃcius Andrade
Wed, September 28, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s 70% odds of winning Brazil’s presidency this October are tilted to the upside, says political consultancy Eurasia Group.
Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro is failing at curbing Lula’s “final sprint,” which is putting him closer to clinching an outright victory on Oct. 2, according to Christopher Garman, managing director at the firm.
“Our 70% chance of Lula winning the elections is biased upward, the momentum seen last week with the ‘useful vote’ hasn’t changed,” Garman said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Sao Paulo offices, referring to people changing their votes to a candidate they see as having better odds. “This is a bad sign for Bolsonaro.”
Recent polls show Lula’s support increasing in the final days of the campaign, with some surveys putting the left-wing former president within inches of getting the more than 50% of valid votes -- which exclude ballots cast in blank or annulled -- he needs to avoid a runoff.
Brazil’s Latest Polls Ahead of October Presidential Vote (Table)
It’s an outcome that hasn’t happened in a presidential race since 1998, when then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was re-elected. Not even Lula, at the height of his popularity, managed to pull-off an outright win when he was chosen for a second term in the 2000s.
Garman puts odds of that happening between 20% and 25% -- double from earlier in the race, but still far from a base-case. Face-to-face surveys tend to over-represent left-wing candidates, he says, since it underestimates abstention rates that are proportionally higher among the poorest.
Thursday evening’s televised debate will be key for the outcome of Sunday’s vote.
“Lula must do well on the debate if he wants to win” in the first-round, Garman said. “He has to hammer the message that, back when he was president, he raised credibility and the economic conditions of Brazil -- and that, if he wins this time, he will do it again and better.”
Contested Election
A first-round Lula win or a commanding lead into the second round don’t reduce the odds of Bolsonaro questioning the election results, given his long-standing distrust of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, Garman said.
“Are the odds of Bolsonaro calling the vote into question lower if he loses by 10 percentage points, or if he loses in the first round? I don’t think so,” he said.
While the president’s supporters will likely hold demonstrations protesting a rigged election no matter the outcome of the vote, Garman doesn’t expect that to have any impact on the official recognition of the vote.
What to Know About Bolsonaro-Lula Showdown in Brazil: QuickTake
If he does win, Lula will likely try to replicate his 2003 strategy, picking a politician to lead his economic team. “A minister with a political profile and some good market names,” Garman says.
Garman also says that tax reform under Lula could be a positive surprise, unifying federal taxes under a value added tax, known as IVA, and potentially adding levies on the wealthy. The challenge, though will be delivering on growth.
“Lula’s government will have a difficult ‘trilemma.’ They want to increase spending, they don’t want to increase the tax burden, and they don’t want to create a debt sustainability problem,” Garman said. “If you don’t have growth, you can’t do all three. Basically, the future of Lula’s government will depend strictly on economic factors.”
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
Lula: Can Brazil's 'most popular president' win again?
Katy Watson - BBC South America correspondent, in Manaus
Wed, September 28, 2022
Lula, who led the country from January 2003 to December 2010, is running for a third term
In the second of two profiles of the leading candidates in the race to become Brazil's new president, Katy Watson asks if Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the same person who took the world by storm 20 years ago.
It is no coincidence that Lula chose the Amazon as one of his key destinations on the campaign trail.
The 76-year-old's main rival in the presidential election on 2 October, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of destroying the rainforest.
Lula knows that climate issues have soared to the top of the political agenda and in Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon, he told reporters "the planet needs special attention from all of us".
"We need to look after our forest, our fauna, our water, but most of all, we need to look after our people because they're struggling, they're in need and they need to live with dignity," he said. "We can reclaim this country, it's possible to once again walk with our heads held high."
Lula chose the Museum of the Amazon to meet indigenous leaders and talk about the future of the forest. "Nobody wants to turn the Amazon into an untouchable world sanctuary," he told the audience.
"What we want is to benefit from our wealth, our biodiversity." By saying that, the former president shows that he is aware of his rival's message. President Bolsonaro is at great pains to say that the rest of the world needs to stop meddling in Brazil's affairs.
Lula remains very popular among left-wing supporters in Brazil
It is 20 years since Lula won the presidency for the first time. A former metal worker and union leader, he became a familiar face during the strikes of the 1970s, when workers called for higher wages, defying Brazil's military rulers.
He came to power promising change. Helped by high commodity prices, he spent the windfalls on areas such as higher education and welfare programmes that contributed to lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty.
Described by former US President Barack Obama as "the most popular politician on Earth", Lula left office after eight years in power with an approval rating of more than 80%.
Like him or hate him, he was a politician unlike any other. But in recent years, that legacy has been tainted with his party - and Lula himself - hit by corruption scandals.
In 2017, he was sentenced to nine years in prison. His convictions were quashed four years later, but his brush with the law means that he is no longer just seen as the "saviour" of Brazil. Instead, many millions of Brazilians see him as a corrupt politician unfit for office.
Given that split among voters, I asked him how he thought he could convince the electorate he is the right man to lead Brazil.
"Deaths [like that] of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira can't ever happen again," he said, skirting the question with a reference to the killing in June of a British journalist and an indigenous expert in the Amazon.
"Brazil needs to be transformed into a civilised country, it can't fall victim to inhumane people," he added. "I am convinced that we need to change Brazil - and changing Brazil means having a government that assumes responsibility for really caring for people."
Carol Araújo says she is unsure if a return to power for Lula would improve things
Not far from the centre of Manaus, where Lula spoke, 24-year-old mother-of-three Carol Araújo lives in small community of palafitas - houses that sit on stilts over a small river.
Rainy season is coming to an end and the earth below the houses here in the neighbourhood of São Jorge resembles a swamp more than a river.
Rubbish is everywhere: broken bottles, old boxes and shoes. In the sweltering heat of Manaus, the stench is overpowering.
Official figures suggest an estimated 63 million people now live in poverty in Brazil, and Carol, who was born in São Jorge, is one of them.
She knows nothing but hardship, but she does know who she is going to cast her ballot for. "I'm going to vote for Lula because under him, everything was easier," she says. "But I don't know if [by him] coming back things will improve."
It is a risk she is prepared to take. With food and energy prices rising, she cannot make ends meet.
"I try and find work when it comes my way but it's hard. I have to make it work to feed my children." She says that it comes down to knowing who will help her and those like her, because "during the elections, all the politicians do is make promises".
Another Lula supporter, Beth Ferreira, says she is "crazy" about Brazil's former leader
Lula more easily relies on the older generation, which can remember the good times, but he knows he will have to win over the younger generation voting for the first time.
"It's a sign of the incapacity of Brazil's elite to renew itself," says Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.
"Lula has been running for president since Brazil became a democracy in the late 1980s, and in that sense he is very much a key personality of Brazil's transition from autocracy to democracy. But he struggles to point to the future, he's very much a throwback."
But while this is the same Lula, he will not be in charge of the same Brazil. Economic crises and more political polarisation set the country apart from what he inherited the first time.
For supporter Beth Ferreira, that does not matter. "I am crazy about Lula - Brazil needs him because we are in decline," she says. "When he started in 2003, Brazil was in the same situation, it was devastated. And we think he can do the same thing - our hope never dies.
