Jair Bolsonaro on brink of victory in Brazil as fears for democracy grow
Far- right Bolsonaro front- runner against Leftist Haddad ■
Rio De Janeiro, Oct. 28: Brazilians cast ballots Sunday in a divisive presidential run- off election whose front- runner, farright former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, is vowing to rescue the country from crisis with a firm grip.
Bolsonaro — who has tapped deep anti- establishment anger, but repulsed many with his denigrating remarks about women, gays and blacks -- faces leftist Fernando Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor.
Mr Bolsonaro had an eight- to 10- point lead going in, according to two final opinion polls published Saturday, which gave him about 55 percent of the vote.
And while Mr Haddad has made up ground — he trailed by 18 points two weeks ago — it would take a dramatic surge for him to win. “Democracy is at risk, individual freedom is at risk,” Mr Haddad, 55, warned after casting his ballot at a school in Sao Paulo, thronged by supporters clutching red and white roses — as opponents across the street banged pots and pans in protest.
“Brazil has woken up in the last few days ... I have a lot of hope in the result,” he said.
Mr Bolsonaro, 63, voted at a polling station in Rio de Janeiro, ducking in through a side door to avoid the waiting crowd.
Wearing a green army jacket, he left with a double thumbs- up, saying only that he could not make a statement for security reasons.
On Saturday he made his final pitch to voters on social media, the only place he has campaigned since an attacker stabbed him in the stomach at a rally last month, sending him to the hospital for three weeks. “God willing, ( it) will be our new independence day,” he tweeted.
The Latin American giant’s elections come on the heels of a punishing recession and staggering corruption scandal.
Bolsonaro outrages a large part of the electorate — and many outside the country — with his overtly misogynistic, homophobic and racist rhetoric.
He once told a lawmaker he opposed that she “wasn’t worth raping;” he has said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay; and he commented after visiting one black community that they “do nothing — they’re so useless I doubt they can procreate.”