Brazil’s incumbent Jair Bolsonaro participated on his own on a presidential debate on Sunday (October 23) ahead of the runoff on October 30th after his opponent, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, declined to attend.
During the debate at Record studios in Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro said Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s only interest was to legalize cocaine, adding he was a friend of Lula’s.
In other international issues, Bolsonaro accused French President Emmanuel Macron of constantly criticizing Brazil’s environmental problems only because both countries compete against each other in agricultural production. The incumbent also said he would play no part in imposing sanctions on Russia as there is no guarantee it would solve the conflict.
This is the second debate in which Bolsonaro has participated on his own. On Friday (October 21) Lula also declined to participate in another debate.
A Datafolha poll published on Wednesday (October 19) showed Brazil's presidential race has narrowed to a 4-percentage-point gap between leftist front-runner Lula and the incumbent Bolsonaro, and they are now statistically tied.
Datafolha said Lula had 49% of voter support against 45% for Bolsonaro, compared to 49% and 44% respectively in the previous poll.
Comments (0)