Far-right candidate leads in Brazil

– A presidential campaign that has deeply split Brazilians and is likely to end with the election of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro careened into the final week of campaigning yesterday.

Pollsters say Bolsonaro has an 18 percentage point lead over his leftist rival Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT). With 95%

Sao Paulo

of Bolsonaro’s backers saying in surveys they won’t change their votes, it will take a huge twist for Haddad to win in Sunday’s runoff ballot.

Haddad appeals to poorer Brazilians, promising to expand social programmes and to put a cap on the spiking costs of cooking gas cylinders used in low-income homes. He only became the PT’s candidate after jailed PT founder Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was barred from running.

Bolsonaro, 63, is a congressman with an undistinguished career who defends Brazil’s 19641985 military dictatorship. He has caught fire with an electorate seeking order after five years of economic and political crises. – Reuters