Brazil elections 2022: Lula da Silva’s vice-presidential candidate says a first-round victory would avoid tragedies

Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s vice-presidential candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, said that ideally, the left-wing leader should beat the president, Jair Bolsonaro, in the first round of the presidential elections because this would put an end to the growing climate of political violence that Brazil is experiencing.

“I think it is the best thing for Brazil [to win in the first round] because you get out of that confusion, fights, suddenly there can be deaths, there can be accidents, tragedies; it is better for the people, it gives more time to organize, it is better for the economy,” he said, during an interview with the portal UOL.

Geraldo Alckmin also assured that he did not see a climate for a possible coup by Bolsonaro and remarked that the president’s protest against the electronic ballot boxes is “ridiculous” because he was elected up to five times with this voting system: “Now it doesn’t work anymore?”

The latest polls indicate that Lula de Silva (2003-2011) would be close to winning in the first round, something that happens when a candidate has 50% plus one of the valid votes, that is, more than the rest of the opponents combined.

Should he fail to do so, he and Bolsonaro would foreseeably move on to the runoff, to be held on October 30.

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