Assassination attempt upends campaign
A knife attack might have ensured the victory of the far-right candidate running for the Brazilian presidency, said Kelli Kadanus and Fernando Martins in Gazeta do Povo (Brazil). Jair Bolsonaro was campaigning in the town of Juiz de Fora last week when he was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen by an apparently mentally ill leftist, who ranted about his “divine duty” to kill. Bolsonaro—a 63-year-old former paratrooper who is known as Brazil’s version of Donald Trump for his racist, sexist, and homophobic comments—lost 40 percent of his blood and underwent several surgeries. He is expected to recover fully, but may not be able to resume campaigning before the first-round vote on Oct. 7. Even before the attack, Bolsonaro was leading the crowded race, with an estimated 22 percent of the vote. Now, analysts say, the extensive coverage of his recovery “could have a significant effect” on the 28 percent of Brazilian voters who claim they’re undecided. Some might have been his supporters all along. “Many people who were ashamed to say that they’ll vote for Bolsonaro,” says political scientist Marcio Coimbra, “will now have the courage to admit it.”
Bolsonaro is the front-runner only because the courts have banned the most popular candidate, said El Observador (Uruguay) in an editorial. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is still loved by many Brazilians for lifting up the poor while president from 2003 to 2011. But the leftist can’t run in the election because he was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption, a charge he says was politically motivated. His barring “radicalized the campaign like never before.” Brazil had already been shaken by the impeachment on dubious charges of Lula’s leftist successor, Dilma Rousseff, and by the disastrous presidency of her conservative replacement, current President Michel Temer. Poverty has soared by a third under Temer, who has implemented tough austerity measures and is also battling corruption charges. With many poor, black Brazilians demanding Lula be allowed to run, and wealthier, white voters cheering on Bolsonaro, this election has the makings of an “explosive cocktail.”
Lula isn’t helping, said Merval Pereira O Globo (Brazil). For months, he refused to let former Saõ Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad replace him as the official candidate of his Workers’ Party, believing he’d somehow be allowed to run from his prison cell. Lula reluctantly endorsed Haddad this week. Bolsonaro’s team has also done little to reduce tensions, said Eliane Brum in Brasil.ElPais.com. His running mate, retired Gen. Hamilton Mourão, reacted to last week’s attack with a threat to call out the military, saying, “If you want to use violence, we are the professionals of violence.”
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Such rhetoric should frighten us all, said O Estado de São Paulo (Brazil). It is “the echo of a long and deafening preaching of hatred and flight from reason.” Candidates from all parties talk of their opponents “as if they were enemies to be physically destroyed.” If we can’t stop this cycle, “Brazil will once again plunge into the turmoil of instability.”