Hard TV duel between Bolsonaro and Lula

They accused each other of lying./ Hard TV duel between Bolsonaro and Lula

Two weeks before the runoff election for the presidential office in Brazil, the right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and the left-leaning challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva exchanged blows in a televised debate. During the TV duel on the Brazilian broadcaster TV Bandeirantes on Sunday evening, the candidates focused on topics that are considered the Achilles heel of each other: Lula took on Bolsonaro’s handling of the corona pandemic, the incumbent recalled the corruption scandals surrounding the Workers’ Party.

Sharp criticism of the incumbent

“Your negligence led to the deaths of 680,000 people, more than half of whom could have been saved,” said former head of state Lula, accusing Bolsonaro of “failures” in dealing with the corona pandemic. He added: “No government in the world has played with the pandemic and death like you have. Don’t you carry some of the suffering of Brazilians on your shoulders?” Lula also called 67-year-old Bolsonaro the “King of Fake News”.

Bolsonaro, in turn, accused Lula of the fact that during his two terms as head of state between 2003 and 2010, corruption was rampant in the country and his record as president was “disgraceful”: Lula “did nothing for Brazil except put public money in your and your friends’ pockets stuck,” he said. He was a “national disgrace”. Lula was behind bars for 19 months on charges of corruption and money laundering.

Election campaign is like a mud fight

Both candidates also accused each other of lying and false information. The election campaign in Brazil, which was already characterized by smear campaigns and aggressive verbal disputes, has increasingly resembled a mud fight since the first round of voting. Lula’s camp in particular has recently resorted to strategies that the extreme right had previously pursued in particular: The left-wing camp dug up old videos of Bolsonaro performances and extracted individual quotes from them that link Bolsonaro to Freemasonry and cannibalism, for example must.

In a recent attack, Bolsonaro has been linked to pedophilia. Lula’s campaign camp on Saturday called the president a “degenerate criminal” and was “disgusted” by statements made by the head of state a year ago during a visit to a house where apparently underage girls from Venezuela were working as prostitutes.

Questionable methods / TV duel between Bolsonaro and Lula

Arriving in Sao Paulo for the televised debate, Bolsonaro said the past 24 hours had been “the worst of my life” because of these attacks. Lula did not raise the issue during the debate but wore an anti-child abuse campaign pin on her lapel.

In the first round of voting on October 2, Lula won around 48 percent of the vote, ahead of Bolsonaro, who got around 43 percent. The final decision will be made on October 30th in a runoff election, as none of the strongest candidates could win more than 50 percent of the votes. Polls continue to see Lula as a favorite, but his lead has dwindled significantly. Days before the runoff election, he and Bolsonaro should meet in another TV duel.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apparently in the hospital