RIO DE JANEIRO: Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday he would stick to tough rhetoric in campaigning for the second round of Brazil’s bitterly contested presidential election, after his strong win in first-round voting sent financial markets soaring.
Bolsonaro, a former Army captain and veteran lawmaker, nearly won the presidency outright in Sunday’s first-round election, taking 46 per cent of votes to leftist Fernando Haddad’s 29 per cent, in a major shift to the right in Latin America’s largest nation.
As neither candidate won an outright majority, Bolsonaro will face Haddad, the former mayor of Sao Paulo representing the Workers Party (PT), in an October 28 second-round vote.
Some Bolsonaro supporters called on him to moderate his message to ensure victory, but the candidate said he would stick to hardline rhetoric on crime and corruption that has resonated with voters. Many people in Brazil, the world’s fifth most populous country, are disillusioned with traditional parties.
“I can’t turn into a Little ‘Peace and Love’ Jair, which would be betraying who I am,” Bolsonaro said in a radio interview. “I have to keep being the same person.”
His words were a thinly veiled swipe at former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who dropped his fiery leftist rhetoric to win the presidency in 2002, dubbing himself the ‘Peace and Love’ candidate. Lula, the founder of the Workers Party, was president until 2010, but is now serving 12 years in prison on corruption charges.
Reflecting confidence that he will win the second round, Bolsonaro said he had already begun talks with other lawmakers in Congress to build an eventual governing coalition. That raised expectations of swift, market-friendly reforms.
Brazil’s benchmark Bovespa stock index jumped 5 per cent, led by double-digit gains by state-led oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA and state power companies, which Bolsonaro advisers have said they will privatise. — Reuters
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