Lula and Bolsonaro Face Off in Brazil Vote

Polls are now open in Brazil for the first round of the country's general election as incumbent president Luis Anastia Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party faces right wing challenger senator Flavia Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party. That's right. An Atlas Intel survey for Bloomberg News published Saturday. The matchup remains close, with Lula expected to receive 47% of the first round compared to Bolsonaro's 44%. Alright. Back with us again is Bloomberg's Brazil country chief, Filipe Pacheco. Filipe, it's so nice to see you. We wanted to have you back because we didn't get to yesterday. Obviously, polls are finally open. I'm sure you are tracking all of this. How has turnout been? Is turnout really important to one candidate or the other? Just walk us through what you're seeing so far. Good morning, Christina. Good to be back with you guys. Well, turned out, yes, it's extremely important. And as you showed, polls that were out last night, we had three major polls that actually came out at the end of the day, and they all show a very, very similar scenario. Both of them are very close. President Lula has a very, very slight advantage when we look at the first round, which is what we are voting for today. But then, of course, we do not expect this race to actually end today. Most analysts, most people we talk to actually think that we will have to go back to the polls in three weeks for a second round. And that's when the turnout today is actually important to understand how the campaign will go on, moving forward and what exactly the candidates will, do in order to take advantage of the people that are actually not voting today, but will be convinced to come back to polls in three weeks. It's important to remember that here in Brazil, it's mandatory to vote. If you're over 18 and below 70, you are expected to go to polls. Otherwise, you actually have to explain why you didn't and actually pay a very small fee equivalent to $1. Oh, wow. That's so interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. As we're talking, we're seeing footage of the two leading candidates casting their votes. I should say this is a wider pool than just the two of them, and there was this comment from mister Bolsonaro going into the vote saying, vote strategically. Talk a bit about that sort of with a pool this big, the way that these two leading candidates are kind of making their case to voters who might be, you know, interested in some other candidate but might think strategically about how they should vote in this election. That's a very good point, David. As you saw, we had, both candidates actually both voted. One... Slavio voted in Rio and, president Ula here in Sao Paulo. Well, what Slavio meant is basically we don't have just the two of them running today. We have several other candidates with a much smaller representation all of the polls, let's say less than 10%. Those votes, most of most of the three candidates that that have very small representation within the poll so far, most of them align with Flavio in the right wing. Most of them are actually, let's say much closer when it comes to economic or even conservative views as Flavio Bostoltz has. So when he means vote strategically, he would be trying to convince those voters to actually vote for him and avoid a second round. It's very, very hard to tell whether this will be possible. Right now polls are still not reflecting this shift even though they have changed over the past week or so. What we've seen over the past three weeks in Brazil is that the percentage, the difference between the two candidates has narrowed a lot. Three months ago, you wouldn't expect this race to be so tight as it is right now. So it's very, very important to know after post close at 5PM Brazil time, 4PM in New York, what the difference will be and what exactly will be the advantage of whoever is in in first place. Obviously, a very contentious, run up. We were talking yesterday about this is kind of the remix of the 2022 race. Same last names, different... Or at least, you know, Flavio Bolsonaro obviously is the son of Diario Bolsonaro who is currently serving a prison term for trying to stage a coup to overturn the results of of that last race. With that in mind, how are... How is security looking? Have there been any concerns? I know a couple of the embassies issued security warnings and kind of shut down consular services in anticipation of this, but have you seen any concerning things so far? Crystal, you gave a very good lineup of what could be, like, a very good Netflix show of some sort. Right? Like, Latin Latin American politics at its best. You're right. What is the Brazilian equivalent of a telenovela? Yeah. Let's do it. We'll write This is our side quest. Waiting for that. We're we're sure that it will come, but, Flavio Bostenovec is the son of Joum Bostenovec. He was the president for four years, during the pandemic until 2023. Well, he is actually in jail right now. He was convicted last year for attempting a coup. So Flavio was his chosen candidate to run this year. This is the first time Flavio runs against the seventh time for president Lula. Of course, he's very well named, well known name here in Brazil. All over the the globe is a very strong name tied to the left, while Flavio Bostoltz is a representation of the right. And then, of course, he's much more aligned with The US. Trump has already indicated his, let's say, intentions and support to Flavio even though he has not said that publicly over the past few months during the campaign. And you mentioned security. Well, it's very fair to say that everything is fine in Brazil right now. There is no concern. There are people who are not afraid to go go go out or to go vote. We... Don't see any particular security scheme apart from the one that you would expect for a day like today when the entire country is voting at the same time. What you mentioned on Friday is yes. We had an alert by The US and the Australian consular services and the embassy in Brasilia. They both halt their operations for the day citing security concerns. They were not clear why the Brazilian federal police said that they were working with the authorities, but there was not... Never a clear indication of what exactly they were talking about. What we've seen so in the previous months is that president Lula, and there's a huge discussion here in Brazil right now that there could be interference by The US in different ways to actually try to influence the election here. Right now, we haven't seen anything that would give an evidence that this this is happening. But there is a concern. President Lula was in New York last month for the opening of the UN general assembly, and he mentioned that he wouldn't accept anyone interfering in Brazil's election. He didn't mention directly any other leader. He didn't mention Trump. He didn't talk to Trump during his visit to The US, but we know that there is... This is a very, very important topic. It is a huge topic for the country today. Right now, if you go outside, I came from my apartment that's very close to the office. The city is calm. You see images on TV, big capitals up all over Brazil. Everyone is actually voting, and we don't see anything that would be alarming at this point.