These two rivals, central figures in the recent history of Brazil, clashed for the first time publicly.
“His government was the most corrupt in the history of Brazil”, launched against Lula – favorite according to the polls – the far-right incumbent president who had called him a “thief” a few minutes before the debate, with reference to the case of corruption within the public oil company Petrobras.
The person concerned, 76, replied by defending his government record (2003-2010) in terms of social reforms. According to him, Mr. Bolsonaro, 67, “is destroying” the country.
The two candidates accused each other of lying.
In the first part of the debate, which lasted a total of three hours, Lula focused his speech around the defense of the environment and the Amazon.
In one of the most tense moments of the exchanges, the outgoing president attacked journalist Vera Magalhaes for claiming, in a question, that he had spread false information about anti-Covid vaccines.
“Vera, you sleep thinking about me, you have some kind of crush (…) you can’t take sides in a debate like this and make false accusations against me. You are a shame for Brazilian journalism “, he said.
Called a misogynist by another presidential candidate, Mr. Bolsonaro brushed aside this accusation.
Lula leads the race in the polls with 47% of voting intentions, against 32% for Jair Bolsonaro, according to the Datafolha institute. Other polls give Lula a lesser lead.
In addition to the two favorites, the organizers of the debate have invited four other candidates, including former finance minister Ciro Gomes of the PDT (centre-left) and Senator Simone Tebet of the MDB (centrist), respectively third and fourth in the polls.
The ex-president was detained between April 2018 and November 2019 after being convicted of corruption. He recovered all his political rights in 2021, when the Supreme Court overturned these decisions, finding that the court which had tried him at first instance was incompetent.
Lula has, throughout the debate, argued that his innocence had been proven but the other candidates did not hesitate on several occasions to accuse him of “corruption”.
He “was shy and even made mistakes on certain points. He was not as lively as at other times”, political analyst André Cesar, of the firm Hold, analyzed with AFP.
“Bolsonaro was more relaxed, freer with his sentences, he was laughing. In that sense, Bolsonaro won 1-0,” he said.
In 2018, the year he won the election, Mr. Bolsonaro only participated in the first two debates. A month before the first round, he was stabbed during a meeting and, after undergoing surgery, did not resume the debates.