Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-winger Flavio Bolsonaro held a final and more diplomatic debate on Friday, two days before the election.
Polls project a tie between the ideologically opposed pair in Sunday’s runoff after Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of far-right former 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.
There was also a flurry of quips and jibes, with Lula attacking the 45-year-old senator’s lack of experience while 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 Bolsonaro, who asked the incumbent: “Why are things so expensive?”
Lula, 80, repeatedly asked viewers to ‘Google’ 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.
Brazil election heads to runoff as Bolsonaro leads President Lula
“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.
Bolsonaro apologised, but not without asking Lula to “apologize to the Brazilian people who suffer from insecurity.”
Fiercer exchanges overshadowed the first debate five days ago, leaving voters more confused than ever.
The election outcome could see Latin America’s largest country join a regional shift to the right championed by United States President Donald Trump, or remain a left-wing stronghold.
A Datafolha institute survey published on Thursday showed the pair tied with 50 per cent of voting intentions each, compared to Bolsonaro’s four-point lead in polls published two weeks ago.
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