Brazil’s final two presidential candidates faced off in a nationally televised debate Sunday just two weeks before a runoff vote.
Incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing challenger, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, traded accusations of corruption and lying during the long debate.
Bolsonaro attacked Lula over the corruption scandals that plagued the former president’s Workers Party during his presidency from 2003 to 2010, which led to Lula’s conviction on bribery charges in 2017, while Lula attacked Bolsonaro for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic that claimed the lives of 680,000 Brazilians.
Lula was convicted in 2017 of accepting bribes and was imprisoned the following year, disqualifying him for the 2018 election. His conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court, allowing him to face Bolsonaro this year.
Neither Bolsonaro nor Lula received more than 50% of the vote in the initial October 2 election. Recent voter opinion surveys show Lula with a slight lead ahead of the October 30 runoff vote, although earlier polls had shown him leading Bolsonaro by about 10-15 percentage points ahead of the first round of voting.
The much tighter result dashed expectations of a quick resolution to a deeply polarized election in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.