Not surprisingly, Brazil’s early Monday presidential debate was marked by a head-to-head confrontation between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and his main opponent, PT candidate Lula da Silva. An insulting comment about the journalist turned almost all the participants in the discussion against the inhabitant of the Planalto Palace, who was cornered on the topic of “women”.
Scandals and corruption
The aggressive Bolsonaro began by accusing the former president of running “the most corrupt government in the history of Brazil,” referring to the scandals uncovered during Operation Lava Jato at Petrobras, an oil company. Less aggressive than Jair Bolsonaro, and perhaps for that reason less effective, Lula defended himself by citing an extensive list of anti-corruption initiatives taken by his former government.
“The country I left is the country people miss”, Lula da Silva said. And the PT candidate left a promise: “This country will return.” Lula also promised “a war against the educational backlog left by the pandemic.”
Despite Bolsonaro’s provocations, Lula (who leads the polls so far) assumed the pose of a statesman, not responding to the current president’s tone.
In the second part of the debate, Bolsonaro referred to the Auxílio Brasil legislative initiative and accused the PT of disapproving it. A real-time assessment of Folla de São Paulo concluded that Bolsonaro lied. In fact, the initiative was voted for Lula’s party.
Like himself, President Jair Bolsonaro called Lulu an “ex-prisoner” and viciously attacked TV Cultura journalist Vera Magalhães when asked about vaccinations. “I think you are sleeping thinking of me, you can’t take sides in a debate like this. You are a disgrace to journalism,” Bolsonaro replied to the journalist, clearly annoyed.
In addition to the leaders in the voting intent polls, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro, Ciro Gomes, Simone Tebet, Luis Felipe d’Avila and Soraya Troniche also took part in the mega debate.
Not only Lula da Silva attacked Jair Bolsonaro. One of the sharpest statements addressed to the incumbent president was made by Simone Tebet: “We need to change the president of the republic,” the senator said, accusing Jair Bolsonaro of threatening democracy and the independence of the Federal Supreme Court.
Jair Bolsonaro, the only participant who started the debate without greeting anyone, also spoke of “judicial activity” to accuse the judge of interfering with the legislature without preventing interference with the judiciary.
During this peculiar three-hour face-to-face conversation, questions were asked by a group of journalists from the Bandeirantes and Cultura TV channels, the Folha de São Paulo newspaper and the UOL portal, organizers of the debate. The debate was also marked by Lula’s and Bolsonaro’s demand not to sit side by side on the “plateau” of the Bandeirantes network.
The debate was marked by undemocratic scenes in the “living room” set up by the organizers of the debate, which took place without spectators. It was the hottest moment of the night. Team members Bolsonaro and Lula almost got into a fight when the candidates discussed deforestation in the Amazon.
According to a real-time poll of 64 people by DataFolha, re-election candidate Jair Bolsonaro received the worst score in the debate.
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