The two remaining Brazilian presidential candidates, Lula da Silva and incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, crossed swords in a televised debate on Sunday and that was certainly not delicate. Lula called the current president a “blatant liar” and a “little dictator”.
With the debate, the candidates hope to win over the floating voters when the second round of the Brazilian presidential elections takes place in two weeks. The word liar was mentioned repeatedly, at least more than a dozen times per candidate.
“You are lying. You lie every day,” da Silva said during the conversation. He called Bolsonaro ‘the king of fake news’. Bolsonaro, in turn, regularly said, “You can’t come here and tell people these lies.”
Winner
Earlier this month, da Silva, commonly known as Lula, won the first round of the election with 48 percent of the vote, against Bolsonaro’s 43 percent. Polls show that the left-wing Lula, who also served as president between 2003 and 2010, remains the leader, although his lead has dwindled significantly.
Each candidate focused on the issues polls suggested represent their opponent’s weaknesses: for Bolsonaro, that was the Covid pandemic that killed 680,000 Brazilians. “Never in the history of this country has a president been so careless with human life,” he was accused. And for da Silva, it was the corruption scandals involving his Workers’ Party. “You are a disgrace to the country,” Bolsonaro snapped at him.
The two candidates are expected to participate in another debate a few days before the election on TV Globo, Brazil’s most popular channel.
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