Guns, God and fake news dominate Brazil’s presidential race
Tensions between the ruling Workers’ Party and President Dilma Rousseff are running high, and the most likely scenario is a run-off if no one emerges with a clear majority to take power. The campaign was largely run by television, and it featured a plethora of candidates.
Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday offered a kaleidoscope of candidates to choose as the country’s next leader.
A wide range of political parties and candidates participated in the electoral race, many of them with ties to the left. The leading figure was former leftist minister and labor leader Marina Silva, nicknamed the “queen of the social movements,” who emerged as a surprise favorite to succeed Rousseff.
Silva, a former teacher, is popular among young voters. Many also see her as an antidote to corruption plaguing the country. While her victory was expected, her campaign is still open to being defeated by the right wing.
One of the contenders from the left is former union leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s first elected president, who has been accused of corruption and now faces jail time for allegedly misleading investors as head of the state oil firm, Petrobras.
In contrast, former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also known as Lula, has been an inspiration for the party most likely to take power in Brazil.
A third candidate was Luiz Fernando Pezão, the son of former president Lula; he became an apparent frontrunner after his father’s former mentor, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was killed in a plane crash in 1994.
The candidate most likely to defeat Lula is former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, an inspiration for the party most likely to take power.
For this election, the winner will be decided by a simple majority.
But this was not the first time a leftist-led government faced a run-off to choose Brazil’s new leader.
At the beginning of this century, then president Fernando Collor, who won with the support of the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD), was stabbed to death inside his office by a former Marxist who believed Collor was responsible for the kidnapping of his daughter, Maria Lúcia.
Collor’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, has now lost a second
