Bolsonaro, Lula launch campaigns in Brazil

The race for October’s elections in Brazil will officially open on Tuesday with duels between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva highlighting the South American giant’s deep rifts.

Frontrunners Bolsonaro and Lula, who in reality have been on the campaign trail for months, will make it official with competing events showcasing their contrasting styles.

Bolsonaro, 67, plans to kick off his campaign with a rally in Juiz de Fora, the small town in the southeast where an attacker stabbed and nearly killed him during his 2018 campaign.

The attack cemented Bolsonaro in the minds of die-hard supporters as “The Mythos” — a hero storming in to roil the political establishment and speak his mind with dogged clarity.

It’s an image that has suffered as Bolsonaro has reeled through a series of crises, from the coronavirus pandemic – which he has persistently downplayed even as Brazil’s death toll soared – to rising inflation affecting Brazilian families delivered a punch to the pit of the stomach.

Lula, 76, who leads in opinion polls, meanwhile, will begin his campaign by visiting a Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo in Sao Paulo state’s industrial heartland, the place where he launched his political career as a union leader.

Both events ooze symbolism, said political scientist Adriano Laureno, who described the race in Brazil in the late 1980s as “the most divisive presidential election since the return to democracy.”

“Bolsonaro has tried to build this narrative of divine selection around his presidency… in which surviving the stabbing incident is central,” said Laureno of consulting firm Prospectiva.

“Lula, meanwhile, always tries to come back to Sao Bernardo at key moments in his political career and portray himself as a man of the people,” he told AFP.

Lula currently leads Bolsonaro with 44 percent of the vote to 32 percent, according to the latest poll by the Ipec Institute, published on Monday.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the valid votes in the October 2nd election, a runoff will be held on October 30th.

The country of 213 million has been torn in a two-way race since March last year when Brazil’s Supreme Court overturned a controversial corruption conviction that jailed Lula and banned him from politics.

The ex-president (2003-2010) resigned as the most popular president in Brazilian history after spearheading an economic boom that helped lift some 30 million people out of poverty.

But he fell out of favor in spectacular fashion when he became the target of “Operation Car Wash,” a massive investigation into systemic corruption centered on state-owned oil company Petrobras.

Lula, who denies wrongdoing, calls the case a fabricated attempt to overthrow his legacy.

Bolsonaro is banking on a major new social program to boost his popularity and close the gap with Lula.

It is still too early to reflect the full impact of the program in surveys.

Many Brazilians fear that if lost, Bolsonaro will follow in the footsteps of his political role model, former US President Donald Trump, and try to fight the outcome.

Bolsonaro, who regularly blows up alleged fraud in Brazil’s electronic voting system – without evidence – likes to say “only God” can remove him from office.

The two candidates could meet at a ceremony in Brasilia late in the day to install the new head of the Supreme Electoral Court.

Both Bolsonaro and Lula are invited.