Lula accuses Bolsonaro of lying in a tense final debate full of attacks

The two favorites in the Brazilian elections, former president Lula da Silva and the current one, Jair Bolsonaro, photographed during the debate this Thursday on the Globo channel. Andre Borges (Bloomberg)

Brazil attended this Thursday night the final televised debate of the closest and most decisive elections in recent times.

The favorite in the electoral race, former president Lula da Silva, 76, responded one by one to the accusations of corruption that rained down on him from all sides.

“Thanks to what we did to fight corruption, it was discovered and the culprits were punished,” he said.

There were several notably aggressive moments, such as when President Jair Bolsonaro, 67, called Lula a "liar, ex-prisoner, traitor to the country."

In the face-to-face, organized by the Globo channel, five other candidates for the position participated who are below 6%.

The latest polls suggest that Lula would have options to win in the first round next Sunday by the minimum.

Three days before the vote, the debate was considered a crucial moment for Lula, who has led all the polls for months, to sentence the duel he is waging with President Bolsonaro.

It consisted of three hours of questions, late at night, between the seven candidates, including a fake priest from the Orthodox Church who was there to ask Bolsonaro polite questions and who could elaborate on the government actions of which he is proud, such as the pays 600 reais to 20 million poor compatriots.

Shortly before the start of the televised pulse, the star of the Brazilian team, Neymar, asked for the vote for Jair Bolsonaro in a video posted on TikTok, where he has more than eight million followers.

It is valuable support for the president, who is second in the polls, 14 points behind Lula, who according to the Datafolha released this Thursday would achieve 50% of the valid votes.

“I am not going to see it because my vote is already decided.

I am going to vote for Lula because she is the only one who can kick Bolsonaro out, ”explained Nedivaldo de Souza, a laboratory technician.

The televised electoral duel began at 10:30 p.m., just after the daily chapter of Globo's star telenovela,

Like many Brazilians, Mr. Souza has misgivings about Lula but he considers him the only one capable of defeating the current president.

“I would like (Simone) Tebet (of center-right) to win, who is intelligent, an intellectual,” said this worker who drives an Uber at night to make ends meet.

He says that four years ago he voted null.

But now his priority is to fire Bolsonaro, above all, for managing the pandemic.

Lula showed a very different attitude from the one exhibited in the only face-to-face meeting he had had with Bolsonaro so far.

This time the leftist was on the offensive, without failing to reply to any of the many occasions in which the corruption scandals that rocked the Workers' Party (PT) and himself were mentioned.

And she complained over and over again about Bolsonaro: "The audacity with which he lies is insane," said the leader of the PT, who has locked himself up for two days to prepare for the televised duel.

The convictions against him for corruption were annulled by the Supreme Court for procedural defects.

Other cases against him were filed or he was acquitted.

President Bolsonaro also heard references to the various cases of alleged corruption that have been flourishing in the Government and in his family environment since he came to power, such as the alleged bribes in the Ministry of Education or the fictitious salaries apparently paid by his eldest son, Senator Flávio, to members of his Cabinet when he was a councilor in Rio de Janeiro.

The two favorites were left quite blurred among the seven candidates and the baroque rules for distributing interventions, questions and times.

Both Lula and Bolsonaro took advantage of the reply turns to answer the accusations.

The far-right started the debate with a salvo of accusations in which he included his favorite repertoire.

The so-called gender ideology appeared, the risk of Brazil becoming a Nicaragua, the combination of children and sex, and even the mysterious murder of a former mayor who has persecuted Lula's PT for decades.

At another point he stirred up fear on the left by mentioning Che Guevara's t-shirts, "murderer of priests" after having stated: "We cannot go back to the previous phase, this was really a kleptocracy."

The extravagant note was put by the false father Kelmon Souza, who has become famous in this electoral campaign.

He was promoted to presidential candidate after his party's head of the list was banned due to a long-standing corruption conviction.

He came dressed in an orthodox priest's habit even though he belongs to a group not recognized by the religious institution.

Brazil does not have a day of reflection.

Until Saturday the candidates will hold rallies --Lula travels to three states this Friday-- and surveys will be published.

The largest Latin American democracy is nearing the end of an electoral campaign that began more than two years ago, when Lula was politically rehabilitated by the judges.

From one day to the next, Bolsonaro, who had governed at the beginning of his mandate practically without opposition, found himself with a major adversary.

If none of the candidates achieves 50% of the valid votes, there will be a second round in four weeks.

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