Brazil votes in deeply polarised election pitting Lula towards Bolsonaro | Elections Information

Close race anticipated as left-wing Lula seeks fourth non-consecutive time period towards right-wing Flavio Bolsonaro, son of convicted former president.

Polls have opened in Brazil’s presidential election, as soon as once more pitting left-wing incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva towards a right-wing candidate from the Bolsonaro family – Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Some 160 million registered voters are eligible to solid ballots in Sunday’s elections, which is able to elect lawmakers, governors and senators.

If no presidential candidate wins greater than 50 % of legitimate votes, the highest two contenders will proceed to a run-off on October 25.

Most opinion polls forward of the vote confirmed a detailed contest, with Lula holding a marginal benefit over Bolsonaro that tightens additional in a possible second spherical.

Lula, of the Workers’ Party, is looking for a fourth nonconsecutive time period. The 80-year-old, who beforehand served as president from 2003 to 2010, needs to proceed his sequence of social programmes geared toward addressing inequality.

Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, has promised a tough stance on crime and insecurity. The 45-year-old has additionally pledged shut collaboration with the United States underneath President Donald Trump.

His father is presently serving a 27-year jail sentence over his function in a coup plot following his election loss to Lula by 1.8 proportion factors in 2022. The far-right chief’s conviction and that of a number of army officers raised questions in regards to the energy of Brazilian democracy, reviving previous traumas of the 21-year-long interval throughout which Brazil was dominated by a US-backed army dictatorship.

The presidential election has been dominated by points reminiscent of crime, insecurity and the excessive price of residing. Corruption and considerations about US intervention within the nation’s home affairs have additionally loomed over the marketing campaign.

A current survey by Quaest says violence was cited as the most important concern by 31 % of respondents, adopted by corruption (20 %), macro economy (19 %) and healthcare (12 %).

“The stakes of this election are extremely stark as a result of the candidates stand for such opposing visions about what Brazil’s current historical past means,” Andre Pagliarini, an assistant professor of historical past and overseas research at Louisiana State University and the writer of a ebook on Lula, told Al Jazeera.

He added that whereas Lula embodies the “consolidation of Brazilian democracy because the finish of the dictatorship”, the Bolsonaro household argues that “the establishments that Brazilian democracy has erected because the finish of dictatorship are both rotten and unresponsive”.

With reporting by Brian Osgood