Brazil’s ‘Tropical Trump’ poised to win presidency
FLIRTING WITH FASCISM: Bolsonaro has openly cheered dictatorship and publicly insulted women and blacks
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilians cast ballots on Sunday in a divisive presidential run-off election whose front-runner, far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, is vowing to rescue the country from crisis with a firm grip.
Bolsonaro — sometimes called a “Tropical Trump” for his politically incorrect vitriol — faces leftist Fernando Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor.
Bolsonaro had an eight- to 10-point lead going in, according to two final opinion polls published on Saturday, which gave him about 55 per cent of the vote.
And while 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,” 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.
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.
Haddad is standing as a surrogate for popular — but imprisoned — expresident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who led Brazil through the boom years of 2003 to 2010, before both the country and his left-wing political project went bust.
The highly controversial Lula, who stands accused of masterminding the massive pilfering of state oil company Petrobras, is serving a 12-year sentence for bribery.
Lacking his mentor’s charisma, Haddad has struggled to unite opposition to Bolsonaro, despite mounting fears over what the former army officer’s presidency would bring. REJECTION VOTE Bolsonaro, a veteran congressman, is unabashedly nostalgic for Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship (19641985), and has been accused of authoritarian tendencies.
But his law-and-order message has resonated.
The election looks set to be decided as much by Brazilians voting against something as for it.
“I’m not very enthusiastic, because I don’t really like either candidate,” Elias Chaim, 23, an engineering student and music producer, said at a polling station facing the legendary beach of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro.
“But I want to vote Haddad, because Bolsonaro’s discourse of hate and intolerance is a risk for our country.” In Sao Paulo, the economic capital, 51-year-old businesswoman and Bolsonaro backer Ana Lucia Gercici vowed to leave the country if Haddad wins.