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Presidential in BrazilLula given winner of the presidential election with 53% of the votes in the second round
The benchmark polling institute Datafolha published its first poll since the first round of the Brazilian presidential election on Friday.
Another poll, published by another institute, Ipec, predicted a victory for Lula in the second round with 55%, against 45% for Bolsonaro.
AFP
Former left-wing president Lula would win the second round of the presidential election with 53% of the votes cast against 47% for outgoing far-right president Jair Bolsonaro on October 30, according to the Datafolha poll published on Friday.
This poll, the first to be published by the benchmark institute since the first round of October 2 which saw Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva come out on top with 48% of the votes cast ahead of Jair Bolsonaro at 43%, has a margin of error of + or – 2 percentage points.
The various polling institutes in Brazil have been widely criticized for not having anticipated the high score of the incumbent president, to which they attributed a maximum score of 37%, in the 1st round. Thus, the last Datafolha poll published on the eve of the first round, granted 50% of the votes cast (excluding null and white) to Lula against 36% to Jair Bolsonaro.
“Liars”
Another poll, published by another institute, Ipec, granted 51% of valid votes to Lula against 37% to Bolsonaro also before the 1st round last Sunday. On Wednesday, the same institute predicted a victory for Lula in the second round with 55%, against 45% for Bolsonaro.
“We have defeated the lies” of the polls, declared the far-right president, exulting on the evening of the first round. Jair Bolsonaro, who has been losing for several months in the polls, has continued to say that they were “lies”.
The Datafolha poll published on Friday was carried out among 2,884 voters, from Wednesday to Friday. The second round promises to be tight in this extremely polarized election and the two candidates have striven in recent days to rally support.
Cannibalism
Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded sweeping attacks on Friday, accusing each other of drunkenness and being capable of cannibalism respectively. Left-wing ex-president Lula da Silva’s campaign team unearthed and released an old video in which current far-right president Bolsonaro claims he would be able to eat human flesh.
In this interview given to the “New York Times” in 2016, Jair Bolsonaro, then a simple federal deputy, describes what he presents as a ritual of the Yanomami indigenous community, in the state of Roraima (north). “They cook it for two or three days and they eat it with bananas. I wanted to see the Indian get cooked. And then they tell me: ”if you see it, you have to eat it”. I eat it!” declares Jair Bolsonaro in this extract, which has gone viral on social networks in Brazil.
“After all the nonsense that Brazil has already listened to from Bolsonaro, here is another, even more appalling one: he reveals that he would eat human flesh. Brazil no longer supports Bolsonaro,” says a voiceover in the video released by Lula’s campaign team.
“Drunkard”
Jair Bolsonaro’s team retorted that these statements had been “taken out of context”, and announced an appeal to the electoral authorities. And a leader of the Yanomami community, Junior Hekurari, flatly denied the existence of cannibalistic rituals in his culture.
The far-right president, who regularly calls Lula de Silva a “thief”, called him a “drunkard” on Friday during a fiery press conference at the Alvorada Palace, his official residence in Brasilia. Lula “will bring a clique of incompetents to command Brazil. This is not going to work! (…) It is our freedom that is at stake!” he got carried away.
(AFP)