‘FIFTH-GRADE LEVEL’: ‘He doesn’t know what hunger is,’ Lula said of Flavio Bolsonaro, who asked the Brazilian president: ‘Why are things so expensive?’
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-winger Flavio Bolsonaro of Friday held a final, more diplomatic debate, although neither held back with cutting remarks two days before today’s election.
Polls project a tie between the ideologically opposed pair in the runoff after Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of far-right former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, took the lead in the first-round vote.
Their first debate was loaded with insults and practically empty of concrete policy proposals, but the candidates this time questioned each other on Brazil’s economy, infrastructure and regional development.
Brazilian presidential candidates Flavio Bolsonaro, left, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the incumbent president, attend a televised debate in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
Photo: Reuters
There was also a flurry of quips and jibes, with Lula attacking the 45-year-old senator’s lack of experience while Flavio Bolsonaro accused the president of leaving behind a “broken country.”
“He doesn’t know what hunger is,” Brazil’s first working-class president said of Flavio Bolsonaro, who asked the incumbent: “Why are things so expensive?”
The election outcome could see Latin America’s largest country join a regional shift to the right championed by US President Donald Trump, or remain a left-wing stronghold.
A Datafolha institute survey published on Thursday showed the pair tied with 50 percent of voting intentions each, compared with Bolsonaro’s four-point lead in polls published two weeks ago.
Lula, 80, repeatedly asked viewers to “Google” Flavio Bolsonaro’s claims, to which the senator shot back: “Who governs Brazil, you or Google?”
The right-wing candidate mocked Lula over the finger he lost in an accident as a metalworker when he was young.
“It’s no use, Lula, giving with one hand and taking away with your nine fingers,” he said.
“I will not allow a militiaman to call me ‘nine fingers,’” Lula replied, referring to allegations that his rival has ties to paramilitary groups in Rio de Janeiro.
Flavio Bolsonaro apologized, but not without asking Lula to “apologize to the Brazilian people who suffer from insecurity.”
Lula challenged his rival’s plan to take a “chainsaw” to public spending in the style of Argentine President Javier Milei.
“I’ll have the same job here, because you’re leaving the country bankrupt,” Flavio Bolsonaro replied. “Aren’t you ashamed?”
Fiercer exchanges overshadowed the first debate five days earlier.
“The debates have once again descended to a fifth-grade level, which is absurd,” said dentist and Flavio Bolsonaro voter Lizie Moreira, 60.
Flavio Bolsonaro has promised to resolve Brazil’s crime woes, create 500,000 more spots in prisons and slash government spending.
“Lula wants to talk about proposals, unlike [Flavio] Bolsonaro, who prefers attacks and provocations,” Brazilian Minister of Social Communication Sidonio Palmeira said ahead of Friday’s program.
Lula “represents everything that I am,” Gabriela Ferreira, 22, said at a leftist demonstration in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte.
“I am poor. I am a student. I depend on a scholarship to do my degree,” Ferreira added.