Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva for the first time face to face

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, candidate for re-election in the October elections, will meet face to face today for the first time with his main adversary, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during a ceremony at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party (PL, right) and Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT, left) announced that they will be present this Tuesday at the inauguration of the new head of the TSE, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, in an event that they will attend two thousand guests in Brasilia.

Today in the Federal Capital, the presence of the two candidates who together account for 72% of the voting intentions, according to the latest survey by the Ipec consulting firm, was awaited with expectation.

Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva have blasted each other in recent speeches like two boxers getting ready for a fight.

The president called his rival an “ex-prisoner” and an “alcoholic,” while Lula da Silva said that his adversary is a “genocide” who is surrounded by “militiamen” or paramilitaries.

The ceremony will also be attended by former president Dilma Rousseff, of the PT, and former president Michel Temer, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB, conservative), whose relations have been broken since 2016.

That year, Rousseff was dismissed in an “impeachment” and Temer, who was vice president, became the president.

The act this Tuesday in the palace of the TSE coincides with the official start of the campaigns, so the streets of São Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro were filled with activists with party flags, while others distributed pamphlets.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes receives the post of the TSE from his colleague, Edson Fachin, who on a recent trip to the United States declared that something “worse” than the seizure of the Capitol in January 2021 by of supporters of then President Donald Trump could happen in the Brazilian elections.

Bolsonaro accused Fachin of being part of a plot in favor of Lula da Silva’s victory and warned that he may not recognize an adverse result if he suspects it was the result of “fraud.”

The president has also expressed harsh criticism and at times insults against Moraes, the new head of the TSE.

During the events of September 7, 2021, commemorating Independence Day, Bolsonaro affirmed before tens of thousands of people in São Paulo and Brasilia that Moraes was a “scoundrel.”

In those same massive acts, the president assured that he would not abide by any sentence by Moraes, who is in charge of investigations into the dissemination of false news or “fake news” that would be generated by the government.