Presidential election in Brazil: the extreme right at the gates of power

Rio de Janeiro – The Brazilians began to vote Sunday for a presidential election that the far-right far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro has a great chance to win despite a recovery of his leftist opponent Fernando Haddad in the home stretch.

After the October 7 ballot that saw Bolsonaro grapple with an election in the first round (46% of the vote), 147 million voters returned to polling stations in the largest country in Latin America.

The offices opened at 08:00 (11:00 GMT), the last will close at 19:00 (22:00 GMT) and the results are expected about an hour later. Jair Bolsonaro voted in Rio through a side door of the polling station to avoid the crowd.

"I came early, and that's important because every voice counts", told AFP Maria do Socorro, a 74-year-old retiree, in front of her Copacabana polling station in Rio de Janeiro."This campaign was different, we hardly heard the proposals of the candidates".

Very polarized, the hard campaign of the between-turns was indeed fueled by hate speech but no debate.

The last two polls on Saturday evening credited Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party (PSL) with 54 percent and 55 percent of the voting intentions, and Fernando Haddad of former president Lula's Workers' Party (PT) of 46 percent. 45%.

Thus, the gap between the two contenders for the succession of conservative Michel Temer, for a four-year term, rose from 18 points in mid-October to 8 to 10 points on the eve of the poll, allowing the left to still believe in it.

"I still think that Bolsonaro is a favorite", considers Gaspard Estrada, specialist of Latin America Sciences Po, but"in the electoral history of Brazil it is not at all excluded that there are strong movements in the last 24 hours".

– Insignificant career –

Marcos Kotait, a 40-year-old publicist, was among the first to vote in Sao Paulo. "I have never seen such a polarized election"he says,"the last time we voted by choice, not against something".

In Rio, Elias Chaim, a 23-year-old engineering student, arrived full of doubts in his Copacabana polling station.

"Really, I do not like any of the candidates. In the first round I voted no, but today I vote Haddad because the speech of hatred and intolerance of Bolsonaro represents a risk for our country", he says about the candidate who praised the dictatorship and its torturers.

In a country plagued by record violence, economic sluggishness, rampant corruption and an acute crisis of confidence in the political clbad, Jair Bolsonaro has managed to establish himself as the tough man Brazil needs.

A Catholic defender of the traditional family, he has received crucial support from powerful evangelical churches and has outraged many blacks, women and members of the LGBT community with outrageous statements.

In Brasilia, audiovisual student Luisa Rodrigues Santana has just voted for Haddad because "if Bolsonaro is elected, it will release all this hatred accumulated in everyone".

"As a black woman from the LGBT community, I'm scared", she says.

Alberto Goldman, former center-right governor of Sao Paulo, believes that the institutions would be strong enough to prevent any drift if Bolsonaro came to power, while 50% of Brazilians mention a risk of return of the military dictatorship (1964-85) .

"But I'm not ready to pay for the proofGoldman added, announcing that he would vote for Haddad.

For Marcio Coimbra of Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Brazil has strong safeguards with "a strong parquet floor, a strong Supreme Court and a functioning Congress".

– "Fight against fascism"-

Bolsonaro, who is in the process of depriving the PT of a fifth straight victory in a presidential election, has capitalized on the frustration of the Brazilians by playing on the register of "all rotten"and a virulent anti-petist sentiment.

Interviewed at her polling station in Sao Paulo, Ana Lucia Gercici, a 51-year-old businesswoman, says: "If Haddad wins, I'm going to live in Italy in November because "Very quickly people will be prevented from leaving the country and it will become Cuba".

Fernando Haddad, 55, promised to "fight against fascism until the end"when Lula, from the depths of her prison, called for the union of Democrats against"a fascist adventure" in Brazil.

Haddad, former mayor of Sao Paulo, wants "make Brazil happy again"as under the Lula mandates in the years of growth (2003-2010), but he did not make the self-criticism of the PT, held responsible by many of the current plagues of the country.