N環球 
Brazil runoff: Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro meet in first televised debate tonight, one week out
Both camps held mass rallies on Sunday ahead of the Band TV debate at 8 p.m. São Paulo time. The October 25 runoff remains a close race.
Why it matters
Brazil's presidential runoff enters its final week: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro meet tonight (Oct 18) in their first televised debate, at 8 p.m. São Paulo time (2300 GMT) on broadcaster Band. Polls show a close race for the October 25 runoff, with Bolsonaro finishing nearly 2 percentage points ahead of Lula in the first round on October 4.
On Sunday, supporters rallied on both sides: pro-Bolsonaro crowds in Brazil's yellow, green and blue packed Paulista Avenue in São Paulo's financial center, where the candidate addressed the crowd; Lula supporters in red, the color of his Workers' Party, filled Brasília's plaza of government buildings, while students protested against Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro.
Full report
Both candidates hope to engage the 33 million voters who stayed home in the first round — about one in five eligible voters.
The last debate of the first round was canceled at the last minute when Lula and Bolsonaro pulled out. Televised presidential debates were once a hallmark of Brazilian democracy after the end of the country's 21-year military dictatorship in 1985, but leading candidates have increasingly stayed away. Still, this runoff debate is expected to be tense and personal.
Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing reelection to Lula in 2022. The younger Bolsonaro has called his father's trial a "farce" and promised to seek amnesty for him if elected.
A dispute over Meta's platforms has added tension to the campaign's final days: Lula's coalition said his Instagram account and posts were restricted, and newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported internal Meta messages acknowledging the restrictions and saying the platform had recommended Bolsonaro's profile and WhatsApp channel to users.
The runoff vote is on October 25.
💬 Comments
No comments yet. Be the first!