Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva dominate Brazil’s first election debate in a rhetorical slugfest

Brazilian conservative President and re-election candidate Jair Bolsonaro and former President and main electoral rival socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva dominated Sunday night’s first televised debate between presidential candidates ahead of the Oct. 2 elections.

In a highly rhetorical debate on the Bandeirantes television station in the city of São Paulo, Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party defended social measures adopted in the second half of the year aimed at increasing subsidy programs for nearly 20 million destitute families.

For his part, Lula da Sila of the Workers’ Party promised to maintain social assistance until 2023 and praised the model of social inclusion and job creation implemented under his administration between 2003 and 2010.

Also participating in the debate were presidential candidates Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Workers Party, Simone Tebet of the Movement for Brazilian Democracy, businessman Felipe D’Avila of the New Party and Soraya Thronicke of Union Brazil.

Lula da Silva leads Bolsonaro by as much as 15 points in the polls, and it was the first time the two candidates have debated face-to-face in an election campaign.

The head of state accused Lula da Silva of leading “the most corrupt government in Brazil’s history,” while the former metallurgist countered that he had been acquitted in 26 trials by higher courts and that his government was “the one that created the most inclusion and jobs in the country’s history.”

“There was no other government that created as many mechanisms to fight corruption as mine,” Lula da Silva argued.

On the economy, Bolsonaro said Brazil was “among the countries that have recovered best from the pandemic,” while Lula responded that he wanted to return to govern Brazil “to restore growth with social inclusion.”

“The poor will be respected again,” said Lula da Silva, who wants to regulate the work of digital apps used by drivers and food delivery companies.

Bolsonaro called the socialist an “ex-convict” because he served 580 days in prison for Operation Car Wash in 2018, which barred him from participating in this year’s elections.

However, Lula da Silva stressed several times that the courts overturned his sentences due to the bias of former judge Sérgio Moro and the prosecution.

For his part, Ciro Gomes proposed a model of “pacification” to the population in light of the polarization between Lula and Bolsonaro, saying he wanted to “fight against the machinery that transfers income from the productive and working sectors to the financial sector.”

In the polls, Gomes has 7 percent of the vote, followed by Tebet with 2 percent, according to the Datafolha Institute.

Senator Tebet promised that if elected, she would ensure equal representation of men and women and provide incentives for economic investment.

Thronicke and D’Avila, who failed to reach the 1-percent threshold in the polls, promised to open up the economy through tax cuts, incentives for agribusiness and a privatization agenda that goes beyond that of the Bolsonaro government.