Brazil holds historic election with Lula against Bolsonaro
More than 120 million Brazilians will vote Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years, reports Associated Press.
With polls opening at 8 a.m. Brasilia time, the race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found that 50% of respondents who intend to vote for a candidate said they would vote for da Silva, against 36% for Bolsonaro. The polling institute interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
Traditionally, the armed forces’ involvement in elections has been limited to carrying voting machines to isolated communities and beefing up security in violent regions. But this year, Bolsonaro suggested the military should conduct a parallel count of the ballots.
While that didn’t materialize, the Defense Ministry said it will cross check results in over 380 polling stations across Brazil. Any citizen or entity is able to do the same, consulting a vote tally available at each station after ballot closure and online.
Because the vote is conducted electronically, preliminary results are usually out within minutes, with the final result available a few hours later. This year, all polls will close at 5 p.m. Brasilia time, regardless of areas that are in later time zones.
