Jair Bolsonaro and Lula closed out their campaigns yesterday as polls show a slight lead for Lula; Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema gave a key boost to Bolsonaro with a last-minute endorsement.
Bolsonaro told supporters that while he can be coarse at times he is not a thief like his opponent, Lula, who served time in jail for corruption.closed out his underdog campaign last night in his home state of Rio de Janeiro. Thousands of enthusiastic Bolsonaro supporters, clad in Brazil’s yellow soccer jerseys, packed the plaza in Campo Grande, a western suburb of Rio de Janeiro.
Bolsonaro stuck to tried and true culture war themes, emphasizing his steadfast social conservatism, and contrasting it with the alleged disorder and chaos posed by a"Do we want a country of peace and tranquility, order and progress, or do we want to return to the old corrupt ways that we can expect with the Workers Party…we don’t want the legalization of drugs in Brazil, and we also don’t want gender ideology for our children.
Lula is a longtime union leader and two-term former president who left office as one of Brazil's most popular leaders. Nonetheless, a series of scandals involving state oil company Petrobras, and construction giant Odebrecht, led to his conviction and imprisonment on corruption and money laundering charges. The Brazilian Supreme Court reversed the conviction on a technicality, clearing the way for Lula to run this year for an unprecedented third term.
Zema faults the Workers Party for incompetent and harmful governance at both the state and national level.