Unsurprisingly, Monday’s early morning Brazilian presidential debate was marked by a head-to-head showdown between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and his main rival, PT candidate Lula da Silva. An insulting comment about a journalist turned all the participants in the debate against the resident of Planaldo Palace, who was cornered on the topic “Women”.
Scandals and scandals
Aggressive, Bolsonaro accused the former president of running “the most corrupt government in Brazilian history,” referring to scandals exposed by Operation Lava Jato at the Petrobras oil company. Less aggressive than Jair Bolsonaro — and perhaps less effective for that reason — Lula defended himself by citing an extensive list of anti-corruption initiatives adopted by his former government.
“The country I left is the country people miss”, said Lula da Silva. The PT candidate made a promise: “This country will come back”. Lula also promised a “battle against the educational backwardness left by the epidemic”.
Despite Bolsonaro’s provocations, Lula (who leads the polls so far) has struck a politician’s pose, not responding to the current president’s tone.
In the second part of the debate, Bolsonaro referred to the legislative initiative ‘Auxilio Brasil’ and accused the PT of not accepting it. A real-time assessment by Folha de São Paulo concluded that Bolsonaro lied. In fact, the initiative was voted in favor of Lula’s party.
Like himself, President Jair Bolsonaro has called Lula an “ex-convict” and violently attacked television culture journalist Vera Magalhas when she was confronted with a question about vaccination. “I think you sleep thinking about me, you can’t take a side in a debate like this. You are a disgrace to the press,” Bolsonaro replied to the journalist, visibly irritated.
Apart from the leaders in the voting intention poll, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro, Ciro Gomez, Simone Tebet, Luis Felipe de Ávila and Soraya Tronic also took part in the mega debate.
Lula da Silva is not the only one attacking Jair Bolsonaro. One of the most violent statements against the current president was made by Simone Tebet: “We must change the president of the republic,” said the senator, accusing Jair Bolsonaro of being a threat to democracy and the independence of the Federal Supreme Court.
Jair Bolsonaro, the only participant who started the debate without congratulating anyone, spoke of “judicial activism” to accuse the judge of interfering with the legislative power rather than preventing it from interfering with the judiciary.
During this strange three-hour face-to-face, the questions were raised by a ‘pool’ of journalists from the Banderantes and cultural televisions, Folha de São Paulo newspaper and UOL Portal, the organizers of the debate. The debate was marked by the Bandirandes network’s demand not to position Lula and Bolsonaro side by side on the ‘plateau’.
The debate was marred by anti-democratic scenes in a ‘lounge’ set up by the organizers of the debate without an audience. It was the hottest moment of the night. Bolsonaro and members of Lula’s team nearly came to blows when the candidates debated deforestation in the Amazon.
Re-election candidate Jair Bolsonaro had the worst rating in the debate, according to a real-time poll by Datafolha 64 people.
