Brazil is poised to bring former leftwing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva back to power, reports say.
Lula looks set to defeat his far-right rival and incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Trump of the Tropics" in Sunday’s election.
This Sunday's poll is historic for a country that has reportedly lurched from one crisis to the next under the presidentship of Bolsonaro, who came to power after Lula, who served the country between 2003 and 2010, was arrested in April 2018 in connection with a bribery scandal for which he was handed over a 12-year sentence. However, a Supreme Court judge annulled the corruption convictions last year making it possible for him to run for the presidency.
"Eve of election polls suggested Lula was within a whisker of securing the overall majority of votes that would guarantee him a first-round victory against Brazil’s radical incumbent, whose calamitous Covid response, assault on the Amazon and foul-mouthed threats to democracy have alienated more than half of the population, reports The Guardian.
“I’m going to win these elections so I can give the people the right to be happy again. The people need, deserve and have the right ... to be happy once more,” Lula, 76, told journalists on Saturday during a visit to São Paulo – one of the election’s three key battlegrounds, alongside the states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, adds the report.
In the Brazilian electoral system, a winning candidate must gain more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate crosses that threshold, a second round of voting between the two frontrunners will take place on October 30.