Lula has the open support of 50 percent of respondents (Getty)
The former Brazilian president, leftist Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is competing with the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro In the presidential elections, Friday, he expressed his fear that his opponent would cause “turmoil” if he was defeated in the first round of voting on Sunday.
Late in the polls, Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned Brazil’s electronic voting system, and has hinted that he will not accept defeat in the presidential election.
Lula told reporters in Rio de Janeiro that when he first won the presidency in 2002, his defeated rivals conceded defeat, as is customary.
“This is not Bolsonaro’s behavior, he can try to cause some kind of trouble,” added Lula, who ruled for two consecutive terms from 2003 to 2010.
To win in the first round, a candidate must receive more than 50 percent of the votes counted.
Lula has the open support of 50 percent of respondents in a recent survey conducted by the Datafolha Institute. They said they intended to cast valid votes, not with blank or void ballot papers.
Bolsonaro has often claimed without evidence that Brazil’s electronic voting machines are vulnerable to fraud, in what many fear may be a preemptive attempt to challenge the election result.
“I have a feeling that Bolsonaro will not accept the result” if Lula wins in the first round, political analyst Guillerme Casaros of São Paulo Business School told AFP.
He added that one of the possibilities is that he “calls his supporters to take to the streets to protest the election results, and this may lead us to a scenario similar to what we saw in the United States in 2021,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s supporters storming the US Congress building in Washington to protest his loss. electoral.
Bolsonaro has previously stated that “only God” can overthrow him, and that his candidacy for a new term has only one of three results: “imprisonment, death or victory.”
(AFP)