The Latin American country with continental dimensions has been preparing for this deadline since March 2021, when the Supreme Court allowed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to make a political comeback by overturning the controversial convictions which had sent him 18 months in prison. prison for corruption.
Lula, who turned 77 on Thursday, may have been the poll favorite for months but the gap has narrowed with Bolsonaro, 67, who scored better than expected in the first round (43% to 48 %).
Two days before the vote, analysts do not exclude that the 6th presidential campaign of the inoxidable founder of the Workers’ Party (PT) will fail at the post.
According to the latest poll Thursday from the benchmark institute Datafolha, the former trade unionist is credited with 53% of the votes cast, against 47% for Bolsonaro.
The two candidates, who hate each other, meet on Friday evening for a final televised debate which promises to be very tense.
“This race is going to end on the wire”, predicts for AFP Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, “every vote will count, I would not bet on the result”.
Bolsonaro benefited from a dynamic after this reassuring first round for him. Its allies also made strong progress in the gubernatorial and legislative elections which took place alongside the first round of the presidential election on 2 October.
Whatever the name of the new president elected for four years, he will have to govern with a more powerful radical right.
– “Scars” –
But Bolsonaro appears to have doubted his victory in recent days, reigniting his attacks on Brazil’s “fraudulent” electoral system that he had muted.
He will only accept the election result if “nothing abnormal happens”, he warned recently.
He has just launched an offensive on alleged irregularities in the broadcasting of electoral propaganda on the radio which would have harmed his campaign, deprived according to him of the broadcasting of some 150,000 spots. But the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) on Wednesday rejected its request for an investigation.
In this context, many fear a Brazilian remake of the assault on the Capitol in January 2021 by sympathizers of the defeated US President Donald Trump, model of Jair Bolsonaro.
But analysts believe that Bolsonaro lacks the support of the army and institutions to make a real coup if he loses.
However, he can try, especially since he can count on a base of supporters ready for anything. And, “as we have seen in the United States, it leaves scars for the country”, says Brian Winter.
– Debauchery of attacks –
This last month of the campaign has given rise to a flurry of attacks and personal insults, especially on social networks, a battleground more important than ever.
The Bolsonaro camp has accused Lula of wanting to close churches, promote “gender ideology” in schools and make a pact with Satan. The Lula camp accused Bolsonaro of pedophilia and cannibalism.
These games have left little room for the real problems of the 215 million Brazilians, such as the relative weakness of the economy, inflation and the hunger from which 33 million of them suffer.
Lula has mainly campaigned around the success of his two terms (2003-2010) at a time of economic boom enabled by the surge in raw materials for the largest economy in Latin America.
And even if the charges against him around the sprawling investigation into bribes linked to Petrobras have been quashed, Lula still embodies corruption for millions of Brazilians.
But he retains staunch supporters, such as Ana Gabriele dos Santos, an employee of a ranch in the semi-arid region of Sertao, stronghold of Lula, in the northeast.
“We were for Lula then, we are for Lula today,” the young woman, whose family has always voted for the leader of the PT, told AFP.
Bolsonaro, for his part, can capitalize on a slight economic recovery with a decline in unemployment and inflation, as well as on the defense of ultra-conservative values: God, family, homeland.
“He’s one of us,” says Gilberto Klais, an entrepreneur who shows off a giant sticker on his car, yellow and green like the colors of the Brazilian flag, in the southern state of Parana, a Bolsonar stronghold.
But in fact, a crowd of Brazilians will mostly vote on Sunday for the candidate they hate the least.
