[ad_1]
SAO PAULO – Brazilians appoint their leaders on Sunday in an election marked by intense anger against the ruling class after years of political and economic turmoil, including what could be the country's biggest corruption scandal. history of Latin America.
Many thought that the wrath of "neck-and-neck" would support the chances of an outsider and put an end to the hegemony of the Center-Left Workers' Party and the Social Party. – center-right Brazilian democracy, who have been fighting for years for the presidency.
Like many things in this election, the results did not go as planned. The man who has most benefited from the anger is a 27-year-old Congress veteran – Jair Bolsonaro – whose alien status is based largely on far right positions that have alienated everyone what they have attracted – the nostalgia for a military dictatorship, insults against women and homosexuals and calls for fighting crime by easing controls on already deadly police forces .
Former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party, which won the last four presidential elections, is in second place.
Bolsonaro garnered 36% of the vote in the latest Datafolha poll, followed by 14 points by Haddad. The survey polled 19,552 people on Friday and Saturday and has an error margin of 2 percentage points. If no one gets a majority on Sunday, a second round will take place on October 28th.
"In general, these are the weirdest elections I've ever seen," said Monica de Bolle, director of Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "It is announcing itself as a clash between the two lowest possible candidates."
The campaign to run the largest economy in Latin America, which is a major trading partner for the countries of the region and a diplomatic heavyweight, has been unpredictable and tense. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva led the first polls by far, but was banned from standing for re-election for corruption. Bolsonaro was stabbed at a rally in early September and has been campaigning in a hospital bed in recent weeks. And since forever, Brazilians have said that their confidence in their leaders and their hopes for the future are diminishing.
This election was once seen as the great hope of ending a period of turbulence during which many politicians and corporate executives were convicted of corruption, a president was dismissed and dismissed during controversial proceedings and the economy has experienced a prolonged recession.
Instead, the two leaders only reflect the enraged divisions that have opened up in Brazilian politics following the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff and the revelations of the "Car Wash" transplant probe.
Bolsonaro, whose base is rather that of the middle class, painted a country in ruins, where drug traffickers and politicians steal with equal impunity and where a moral decay has taken place. He advocated for a relaxation of gun ownership laws to allow individuals to fight criminals. the police are more free to use force and the restoration of "traditional" Brazilian values - although some question its definition in the light of its approving allusions to the past military dictatorship and derisory comments about women, blacks and homosexuals.
"There is a strong desire for change," said Andre Portela, professor of economics at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a leading university and think tank. "Bolsonaro was able to channel that and present himself as the bearer of change, although it would not be clear if he really would."
Haddad and the Workers' Party, for their part, have portrayed a country hijacked by an elite that will protect its privileges at all costs and can not bear to see the lives of poor Brazilians and workers improve.
Haddad pledged to roll back President Michel Temer's economic reforms, which he said was eroding workers' rights, investing more in social programs and bringing back the boom years of Brazil's booming years. mentor, da Silva.
In the middle are Brazilians who do not like the two candidates and see them as symbols of a failing system.
Perhaps nothing has more demonstrated the malfunction than the Car Wash investigation. Prosecutors said the Brazilian government has been run like a cartel for years, distributing billions of dollars in public contracts in exchange for bribes and bribes. Revelations of cash suitcases, confidential recordings of compromising exchanges between potential brokers and the imprisonment of some of the country's most powerful people unfolded as a Hollywood scenario – and then became one: Netflix has released a fictional (hardly) fictional story this year.
However, it is not clear that voters will reject the many politicians involved in the scandal, as the electoral system strongly favors the incumbents and major parties.
Elections saw a sharp rise in the number of candidates from marginalized groups, including black, indigenous and transgendered Brazilians, and some believe that anti-establishment sentiments could translate into a more representative leadership.
___
Peter Prengaman, an Associated Press reporter, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
[ad_2]Source link
