Hard-right leader shines in 1st round
SAO PAULO — A far-right former army captain who expresses nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship won the first round of its presidential election by a surprisingly large margin Sunday but fell just short of getting enough votes to avoid a secondround runoff against a leftist rival.
Jair Bolsonaro, whose last-minute surge almost gave him an electoral stunner, had 46.7 percent compared to 28.5 percent for former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal said after all the votes were counted. He needed over 50 percent support to win outright. The runoff is set for Oct. 28.
Polls predicted Bolsonaro would come out in front on Sunday, but he far outperformed expectations, blazing past competitors with more financing, institutional backing of parties and free air time on television.
Ultimately, Bolsonaro’s strong showing reflects a yearning for the past as much as a sign of the future. The candidate from the tiny Social and Liberal Party made savvy use of Twitter and Facebook to spread his message that only he could end the corruption, crime and economic malaise that has seized Brazil in recent years.
The two candidates have painted starkly different visions of the country’s past and future. Bolsonaro has portrayed a nation in collapse, where drug traffickers and politicians steal with equal impunity, and moral rot has set in. He has advocated loosening gun ownership laws so individuals can fight off criminals, giving police a freer hand to use force and restoring “traditional” Brazilian values — though some take issue with his definition of those values in light of his approving allusions to dictatorship era torturers and his derisive comments about women, blacks and gay people.
Haddad has portrayed a country hijacked by an elite that will protect its privileges at all costs and can’t bear to see the lives of poor and working class Brazilians improve.
Haddad has promised to roll back President Michel Temer’s economic reforms that he says eroded workers’ rights, increase investment in social programs and bring back the boom years Brazil experienced under his mentor, jailed ex-President Luiz Inacio da Silva, who was barred from running.