It was the first time that both candidates debated alone on television and there was no shortage of insults and cross-accusations
Insults, mutual accusations… Brazil’s presidential candidates Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro starred in a tense face-to-face television broadcast as part of the election campaign just before the start of the second round , which will be held on October 30, which ended without a clear winner.
It was the first time that both candidates debated alone – on previous occasions they had been joined by other candidates who had already been excluded in the first round – so the face-to-face meeting was expected to be an armed encounter. So it was. The main topics of the debate were poverty, the coronavirus pandemic and corruption, with the aim of defeating the adversary and securing voter support.
Former Workers’ Party (PT) president and leader Lula da Silva has kicked off the debate by criticizing the current president for his management during the Covid-19 pandemic. He criticized the delay in vaccine purchases and the high number of deaths in the country. “You are a liar, the king of ‘fake news’, Lula has told him. “You have discredited vaccines, you have ridiculed people who die from lack of oxygen. Nobody in the world joked about the pandemic and death like you,” he censored.
For his part, Bolsonaro has raised the corruption scandals in the Workers’ Party (PT) governments between 2003 and 2016, replying that his opponent “did nothing for the country”. “Petrobras was the greatest corruption scandal in humanity. They looted 90,000 million reais (about $18,000 million). You put the money in your ass and shared it with your friends,” Bolsonaro snapped at Lula at one of the most difficult moments of the debate.
When the president began questioning Lula about the scandals involving the state oil giant, the leftist leader tried to change the subject, in vain, spending too much time responding. Lula acknowledged corruption at the state oil company, but assured that everything was discovered thanks to the transparency of his Executive. Time had to be managed by the candidates, so he gave Bolsonaro five minutes in a row at the end of the face-to-face.
The far-right leader took advantage of the latest piece of the debate to highlight Lula’s relationship with Latin American presidents such as Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, Colombian Gustavo Petro or Argentinian Alberto Fernández, whom he links to communism. bring.
The debate rose in decibels. Lula called Bolsonaro a “little dictator”, “liar” and “brutal”, while the current head of state said his predecessor is “a national disgrace” and a “thief”. Ironically, Lula snapped at Bolsonaro, a captain on the army reservation, that he “flattered” him and “felt proud” to have him as president for the treatment he gave the army when he was deputy.
In the first round of the election, Lula won with 48 percent of the vote, while Bolsonaro received 43 percent of the vote on October 2. Polls say the Workers’ Party leader continues to lead the presidential race, although the polls are showing tighter results.
Source: La Verdad
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