‘In the final stretch Lula cannot get rid of the issue of corruption’

First modification: 10/18/2022 – 11:58

By Justine Fontaine

Lula continues to lead the polls against outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro: 53.5% for Lula against 46.5% for Bolsonaro, according to a poll on Monday. But the difference is narrow and the outcome uncertain.

That poll published earlier in the week gives Lula a 6-point lead over Bolsonaro for the second round, but the polls had underestimated Bolsonaro’s result in the first.

The first televised debate facing the ballot for some analysts was a tie. The next and last debate between the two candidates is scheduled for October 28, two days before the second presidential round. But it is difficult to assess the real impact of these debates on the elections in Brazil.

One of the big questions is: how many Brazilians will not go to the polls on October 30? The polling institutes did not know how to properly evaluate the phenomenon of abstention in the first round.

“If the polls do not adjust their methodologies, taking into account these voters who are not going to vote, they may be wrong,” Thiago Vidal, manager of political analysis at the Latin American consulting firm “Prospectiva,” explained to RFI.

The last few days have been marked by controversial phrases uttered by outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in a podcast last week.

In that program, Bolsonaro made ambiguous comments about Venezuelan adolescents with whom he would have crossed paths in 2021. The opposition immediately accused him of promoting pedophilia and of not having reported a possible case of prostitution of minors.

On Lula’s side, on the other hand, despite the fact that the justice system annulled his conviction for corruption last year, the former left-wing president has still not managed to get rid of this issue in the final stretch.

“Both the PT, the Workers’ Party, and former president Lula himself have failed to find a justification (on the issue of corruption),” says Thiago Vidal.

According to Vidal, in fact, “when they are asked about corruption, about the Petrobras scandals and all that, they don’t have an effective answer. An effective answer not only from a legal point of view, but also from an electoral point of view.” “Corruption continues to be a very big problem for the PT. It seems to me that candidate Lula will not be able to find an answer by the end of the campaign, which ends in two weeks. And he will not find one because until now he has not found it,” he concludes.