No moderation for Bolsonaro in final push for presidency
JAIR BOLSONARO, the far-right challenger for the Brazilian presidency, said he would not moderate his hardline views as he began his final push to lead the country.
The former army captain took a seemingly unassailable lead in the first round of the presidential ballot on Sunday while his Social Liberal Party made huge gains in congress.
In his first interview since the vote, Mr Bolsonaro said he would stick to his to his uncompromising Right-wing messages and not become a “peace and love” candidate just to win more votes.
Fernando Haddad, his centre-left rival, pledged to unite moderates to create a broad centrist coalition to challenge the “anti-democratic threat” of Mr Bolsonaro.
Mr Bolsonaro secured 46 per cent of the vote, beating Mr Haddad’s 29 per cent, but falling just shy of the absolute majority required to win the election in the first round.
Meanwhile, the Social Liberal Party gained 51 seats in the lower house of congress, making it the second largest party in the chamber.
The presidential vote will now go to an Oct 28 run-off between Mr Bolsonaro, who spent much of the campaign in hospital after being stabbed at a rally, and Mr Haddad, the hand-picked candidate of Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva, the Workers’ Party’s imprisoned former president.
Mr Bolsonaro yesterday said on the radio his “discourse will basically stay the same” as he called for the country to “unify” around him.
Asked if he would shift to the centre to pick up votes in the second round, he replied: “I can’t just suddenly become ‘Little Peace and Love Jair’ … I’ve got to carry on being the same person.”