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BRA=,L - Bra]il’s bitterly divisive presidential election will go to a run-off after far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro came in a close second to left-wing rival Lui] ,nacio Lula da Silva - with neither candidate winning 0 per cent of the vote. Electoral authorities confirmed the runoff election late Sunday night after President Bolsonaro beat expectations to finish a relatively close second to front-runner Lula.
Lula, the veteran leftist seeking a presidential comeback, had . per cent of the vote to . per cent for the far-right president with .2 per cent of polling stations reporting, according to official results from the Superior Electoral Tribunal, which said on its website a second round was now ‘mathematically defined.’
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Polls closed at pm on Sunday nationwide, but because the vote is conducted electronically, initial results were out Tuickly. More than 0 million Bra]ilians were eligible to vote in the race, though abstention rates can reach as high as 20 per cent.
The highly polarised election will determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
Meanwhile, there is growing concern that should Bolsonaro not win the election, he will not concede to Lula.
Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticised handling of the CO9,Dpandemic and the worst deforestation in the Ama]on rainforest in years.
LONDON - British Prime Minister Li] Truss was forced yesterdayinto a humiliating U-turn, reversing plans to cut the highest rate of income tax that helped to spark a rebellion in her party and turmoil in financial markets.
Truss, and her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng, announced a new ³growth plan´ on September 2 that would cut taxes and regulation, funded by vast government borrowing to snap the economy out of years of stagnant growth.
But the plan triggered a crisis of investor confidence in the government, hammering the value of the pound and government bond prices and Molting global markets to such an extent that the Bank of England had to intervene with a billion pound (US billion) programme to shore up the markets.
:hile the removal of the top rate of tax only made up around 2 billion out of a billion pound tax-cutting plan, it was the most eye-catching element of a fiscal package that was to be funded by government borrowing, with Kwarteng not explaining how it would be paid for in the long-term.
Just hours after Truss went on
BBC television to defend the policy, Kwarteng released a statement saying he accepted it had become a distraction from wider efforts to help households through a difficult winter.
³As a result, ,’m announcing we are not proceeding with the abolition of the p tax rate. :e get it, and we have listened,´ he said in the statement.
Truss, Britain’s -year-old former foreign minister who took office on September after winning a leadership contest among Conservative Party members, and not the country, said on Sunday she should have done more to ‘lay the ground’ for the policy.