Lula or Bolsonaro, Brazilians two choices for Sunday’s runoff

Brasilia, Oct 30 (Prensa Latina) Polls open today in Brazil for 156 million voters to elect their new presidents for the next four years in a runoff between Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro who seeks reelection.

October 30, 2022
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Lula, the candidate for the Workers Party, and Bolsonaro, for the Liberal Party, faced off on October 2 in the first round in which 11 presidential hopefuls contended for the executive chair.

With 99.9% of the votes tallied, former President Lula had 48.4% support and Bolsonaro had 43.2%. However, the ultra right-wing president made considerable gain in Congress as his party won the majority in both chambers.

The election has made plain Brazil’s deep polarization.This time around supporters of both Lula and Bolsonaro see the vote as an existential choice. The candidates have fought over swing voters, particularly in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the three major electoral districts.

Surveys have been indicating a slight lead for Lula, but another Bolsonaro term is not inconceivable. Recent polls have found the two candidates statistically tied though the latest polls by IPEC and DataFolha showed Lula leading 54%-46% and 52%-48%, respectively.

Nonetheless, the two pollsters were two of several criticized for underestimating support for Bolsonaro in the first round.

Bolsonaro for the 2022 election selected Walter Braga Netto of the same party as his vice presidential candidate rather than incumbent vice president Hamilton Mourão.

For his part, Lula selected as his vice presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin, who had been a presidential candidate of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in 2006 and 2018 but changed his affiliation to the Brazilian Socialist Party in 2022.

Whoever gets elected on the Sunday runoff will take over the South American country for a four-year term starting on January 1, 2023.