Brazil's former President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and current President and candidate for re-election Jair Bolsonaro attend a Presidential Debate ahead of the national election, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 28 October 2022;
Credit: Reuters / Ricardo Moraes
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist election rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, traded barbs late on Friday 28 October 2022 in their final televised debate ahead of Sunday's tense runoff vote.
Polls suggest Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is the slight favourite to come back for a third term, capping a remarkable political renaissance after his jailing on graft convictions that were overturned. But Jair Bolsonaro outperformed opinion polls in the first-round vote this month and many analysts say the election could go either way.
During Friday's free-wheeling debate, the deeply polarising figures attacked each other's character and record, accused each other of lying and refused repeatedly to answer each other's questions.
Jair Bolsonaro opened the debate by denying reports that he might unpeg the minimum wage from inflation, announcing instead he would raise it to 1,400 reais (approx. €265) a month if re-elected, a move that is not in his government's 2023 budget.
Still, most analysts and focus groups with undecided voters suggested the president had done little to shake up a race that polls show broadly stable since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva led the first round of voting on 2 October 2022 by 5 percentage points.
That result was better for Jair Bolsonaro than most polls had shown, giving him a boost of momentum to start the month, but the past two weeks of the campaign have presented headwinds.
Last Sunday, one of Jair Bolsonaro's allies opened fire on Federal Police officers coming to arrest him. A week earlier, President Bolsonaro had to defend himself from attack ads after he told an anecdote about meeting Venezuelan migrant girls in suggestive terms.
In their first head-to-head debate this month, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blasted Jair Bolsonaro's handling of a pandemic in which nearly 700,000 Brazilians have died, while President Bolsonaro focused on the graft scandals that tarnished the reputation of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Workers Party.
On Friday night, both candidates returned repeatedly to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, when high commodity prices helped to boost the economy and combat poverty. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to revive those boom times, while Jair Bolsonaro suggested current social programmes are more effective.
