Brazil: Bolsonaro, Lula Clash in Last Debate before Run-off Vote

By Staff, Agencies 

Incumbent Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have faced off in their final televised debate ahead of Sunday’s tense run-off vote.

Polls suggest Lula is the slight favorite to come back for a third term, capping a remarkable political renaissance after his jailing on corruption convictions that were overturned. But Bolsonaro outperformed opinion polls in the first-round vote this month, and many analysts say the election could go either way.

During Friday’s free-wheeling debate, the deeply polarizing figures attacked each other’s character and record, accused each other of lying and refused repeatedly to answer each other’s questions.

“Brazilians know who the liar is,” said Lula, as the two locked horns over minimum wages and the left-wing politician’s history of corruption allegations.

“Stop lying Lula, stop lying. It’s getting ugly,” said Bolsonaro.

Lula, who served as president between 2003 and 2010, also highlighted that Bolsonaro’s government has not yet provided an increase to the minimum wage above inflation.

“This man governed for four years and there was not one percent of a real increase,” Lula said at the TV Globo debate in Rio de Janeiro, which lasted two and a half hours. He said the minimum wage is now worth less than when Bolsonaro was inaugurated.

Bolsonaro quickly promised to lift the minimum wage from $229 a month to $265 next year, though that was not included in his 2023 budget proposal sent to Congress, which the incumbent president allies’ control.