The Brazilians march this Sunday towards a decisive election for their political destiny, but uncertain outcome between two furiously opposed candidates and who, in a synthesis of the polarization that the country is experiencing, staged a embarrassing debate, crossed by insults and empty promises that did not clarify a possible winner.

The dispute between Conservative President Jair Bolsonaro and his challenger, former Social Democratic President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, It has multiple historical nuances. If the PT leader wins, he would consecrate himself as the first head of state to return for the third time to the government building. If so, it would also be the first time in years that a president has not been re-elected.

The polls, albeit very degraded here after the resounding failure that saw the protagonist in the first round on 2 October, determine an even more defined technical draw after the noisy debate.

This was found by a survey by the MDA Institute Lula collects 51.9% of the votes and Bolsonaro 48.9%, only two points of difference, error range. Sources in the PT had already admitted that according to their projections both are equal, hence the substantial importance of the debate on Friday evening.

A fundamental meeting also for the ruling party, which needed to recover positions after a week in which Bolsonaro has been on the defensive several times from their own mistakes and those of their relatives.

Bolsonaro will recognize the result

After that debate, the head of state, who questioned the transparency of the hitherto successful electronic voting system in Brazil, allayed suspicions of any surprises this Sunday by saying that will accept victory who wins the elections.

A homogeneous headline this Saturday in almost the entire Brazilian press were his words, and it reflects the anxiety that crosses the country. “There is not the slightest doubt. Whoever has the most votes gets it.. This is democracy, “the head of state said in statements to the Globe newspaper, the hearing that hosted the clash between the two applicants.

The first round of October 2 ended with the victory of Lula da Silva, who collected 48.4 percent of the votes, 57,259,504 votes. But with a much smaller difference to which the PT was expecting about Bolsonaro.

The president, in turn, took an extraordinary collection of suffrages in that round, reaching 43.2 per cent of the electorate (51,072,345) and assuring his Liberal Party control of the top minorities in the Senate and deputies, as well as advances in the central districts of the country.

That parity, according to analysts, worsened towards the second round, with which the elections remain open. Any result is possible.

This perspective explains the campaign’s closing strategy this Saturday. Lula da Silva has chosen to hold a grand march on the iconic Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, the state where she grew up politically and where her candidate, Fernando Haddad, will also go to the second round. after being left behind in the first round behind the official candidate Tarcisio de Freitas.

Bolsonaro, on the other hand, chose Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, the second most important district after São Paulo and which it is considered an inevitable station to overcome if you intend to win the national match.

There, in the first round, Lula won the national elections, but the liberal governor Romeu Zema, a businessman allied with the president who immediately joined his campaign.

turn to the center

Lula da Silva showed a strong turn towards the center, a place for him at ease, even with more marked personal cultural positions in defense of the family, against abortion and the frequent mention of God, all signs towards the bourgeoisie that is crucial in these elections.

That speech, the positions and the alliance with conservative figures like Senator Simone Tebet, tried to guarantee a second round victory with the necessary breadth that allows greater room for maneuver if you go back to Palazzo Planalto, the presidential seat.

However, pollsters but also analysts and even observers close to the PT rule out that there could be a big difference in these polls in one way or another.

Both will certainly add voters, because the runoff features only two contenders absorbing the general vote. So if Lula wins as the polls insist, Bolsonaro and his party will remain the main opposition force in the country.

The loss of opportunity afforded by Friday night’s debate was marked by most of the local media, where the general idea was that the big loser would be the public if they expected clarity about the nation’s future to emerge in that confrontation.

“There was no debate, you can’t call it a debate. It was a street discussion that led to a machine to encourage abstention “, a South American diplomat told this envoy. “The whole scene was a mistreatment of politics that threatens to expel young people who do not accept that kind of behavior and prevent them from voting,” he added.

The first round had an absenteeism of over 30 million voters, the largest in a quarter of a century and it is argued that in this nomination this figure will increase as is tradition in the ballot papers.

The debate, in which both candidates were better prepared, was the worst quality of the entire presidential campaign series. The insults escaped from the first second and that noise stifled any possibility of a mature discussion of the proposals.

At no time did either applicant claim any contrary measure adopted. Lula in a studied theatrical gesture looking at the camera asked several times apologies to the public by the behavior of the president who looked after him former prisoner, abortionist and ally of drug traffickers.

Bolsonaro, whose suitability Lula questioned whenever he had the opportunity, tried at all times to defend and claim the good numbers of the country’s economy, with low unemployment, falling inflation and annual growth above 2, 5%.

But outcome when his rival pressed him to explain the reasons for widespread poverty and the existence of a mass of over 33 million Brazilians in poverty and no access to food.

The possible outcome of the elections does not concern the business community and the Brazilian private bank in general. Sources in that sector have pointed this out don’t expect surprises by neither of the two leaders, both pro-market.

Lula da Silva, generally described as left-wing, actually governed with a liberal economic policy and made fiscal responsibility and the protection of private profit one of his main campaign flags.

Its former president of the central bank, Henrique Meirelles, was finance minister during Michel Temer’s government, following the overthrow of Dilma Rousseff, former minister of Lula da Silva and the last failed president of the long four-term administration of the pt .

Meirelles was the author of the legal ceiling on public spending, and it sounds like a fundamental piece of the economic framework of a possible government of the former metallurgical unionist.

St. Paul. Special delivery