Elections come closer to the polarizing presidential election in Brazil

Bolsonaro won the first round of elections this month on a group of 13 candidates. But he failed to reach the 50% needed to win the victory and avoid a second round against Haddad, the Workers Party.

"This is an unprecedented election," said Marco Antonio Teixeira, professor of political science at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. "The rhetoric used by both candidates throughout the campaign was extremely aggressive."

Politically motivated violence

This hostility remained in the streets. Dozens of political acts of violence have been recorded by voters, journalists and politicians.

Bolsonaro, 63, was stabbed to the stomach last month at a rally in the city of Juiz de Fora, in the state of Minas Gerais.

The incident took him out of the election campaign for weeks while he was recovering. But this has strengthened its position among Brazilians seeking change.

Others fear that the elections will lead to more discrimination and hate crimes.

The increased visibility of Bolsonaro caused a social media reaction known as #elenao, or #nothim, which garnered support nationwide and internationally.

During his tour of Brazil, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters exposed the slogan on stage under neon lights and chanted "ele nao" with the crowd.

The protesters also took the song to the streets during the recent "March against the Bolonaro" in Sao Paulo.

"Bolsonaro has opened a box of Pandora," said Luka Franca, organizer of the event. "He gave the floor to an extreme right-wing population that wants to express its prejudices and annihilate anyone who is different."

Ugly rhetoric

Bolsonaro, who has been compared to US President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, has sparked controversy by making misogynistic, racist and homophobic remarks.

Once, he told a Congressional woman that she did not deserve to be raped because she was "very ugly," reported the Brazilian TV channel Globo.

He has also publicly stated that he would prefer that his son "accidentally die" rather than a member of his family be homosexual.

"This negative talk that he spreads is killing people," 29-year-old fashion producer Felipe Lago told CNN. "If he wins, who knows what will happen to us?"

Lago created an Instagram account called "elenaovaoinosmatar" or "he will not kill us" in English, shortly after being verbally abused and threatened by a group of Bolsonaro supporters because they were homosexuals.

"Although I was scared, I decided to publish what happened to me on Facebook," Lago said. "My friends and other people said that the same thing happened to them."

His Instagram account has more than 100,000 followers and includes videos of people who say they have suffered similar assaults.

During the last days of the election campaign, Bolsonaro and Haddad asked their supporters not to engage in violence.

The scandal of "false news"

Laura Chinchilla, head of the Sunday election observation mission of the Organization of American States (US), said she was worried about a "phenomenon" of fake information, observed throughout the campaign.

"The phenomenon we are seeing in Brazil could be the first of its kind, mainly because it is different from other election campaigns in other countries," Chinchilla told local media on Thursday in Sao Paulo.

Folha de Sao Paulo reported that most campaigns targeted the workers' party of Haddad.

This tactic is considered illegal campaign financing, according to the investigation of Folha de Sao Paulo.

Facebook has also closed several groups and user accounts in Brazil this week after identifying them as "fake accounts," according to a statement from the social media company.

"Authenticity is a fundamental value of Facebook, which is why we ask people to use their real names and forbid false accounts and other tactics used by bad actors to misrepresent their identity," he says. the statement said.

"Today, as part of our ongoing efforts to protect our community from this type of abuse, Facebook has removed 68 pages and 43 accounts associated with a Brazilian marketing group, Raposo Fernandes Associados (RFA), for violating our policies of misrepresentation and spam. "

The RFA group had created several pro-Bolsonaro pages and groups, including fake media, magazines, political groups and TV channels.

Proponents of Bolsonaro believe that the Whatsapp and Facebook scandals were created by the Workers' Party of Haddad (PT) as a source of distraction because they are behind in the polls. They also accused Folha de Sao Paulo of bias and made threats against the journalists involved in the investigation.

"There is no evidence," said Fabio Silveira, an engineer, at a recent pro-Bolsonaro event. "This is one of the strategies of the PT.They have reached a point where they realize that they can not win and are now trying to destroy the candidate's image. opposition with false stories. "

Keep the Workers Party

For some Brazilians, like the teacher Alexandre Vastella, voting for Bolsonaro is more about preventing the Workers Party (PT) from taking office.

"I want Bolsonaro to be president, not because he's the ideal person, but because we can not risk letting the PT come back to power," Vastella told CNN. "Of course, all the major parties are corrupt, but the PT has created a corruption infrastructure."

The Workers Party of Brazil ruled Brazil for more than 13 years under the presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from 2003 to 2011 and his successor Dilma Rousseff from 2011 to 2016.

Lula, as his name indicates, left his post with an 83% approval rate, after his policy helped lift millions of Brazilians out of poverty.

Many politicians, including Lula, have been caught in a massive four-year anti-graft investigation called "Operation Car Wash". He was arrested in April and sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption and money laundering.

Despite his arrest, Lula was running for a third term and was leading the ballot until he was barred from running for the country's highest electoral court in September. Haddad, his vice president, replaced him on the ballot and became the default candidate of his party.

Mandatory vote

Voting is mandatory in Brazil, which means everyone must submit their vote on polling day. Some undecided voters, such as Mauricio Soares, a Sao Paulo resident, choose to vote nil or blank.

"The decision to vote nil came after a lot of thought and I'm firm in my decision," said Soares to CNN. "I'm not neutral, I'm against the two candidates."

Teixeira, the professor, said the winner had to bridge the gap caused by the campaign.

"If the next president governs only for his supporters, the dissensions we live in will remain.If he chooses to govern for the whole country, the risks of minimization or disappearance of these conflicts are increased," said Teixeira.