Brazil Vote Begins As Far-Right Bolsonaro Faces Potential For Resounding Defeat

SAO PAULO — Standing on the back of a small flatbed truck, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva danced and waved and sang his way through a massive crowd of supporters that had gathered for a parade through the center of Brazil’s largest city on the day before the country’s presidential election.

Brazilians head to the polls Sunday in the first round of voting in a contest that has been marred by outbreaks of political violence and fears that far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has spent two years trying to undermine the election, will contest the results and refuse to leave power.

But da Silva, a leftist who served as president from 2003 to 2010 and holds substantial leads over Bolsonaro in pre-election polls, finished this stage of the campaign in a jubilant mood seemingly meant to persuade his supporters, his country and the world that the planet’s fourth-largest democracy would survive whatever final threat Bolsonaro may pose to it.

“I have no fear,” da Silva, 76, told reporters during a Saturday afternoon news conference. “If the people elect me, there will be an inauguration and everything else I’ve promised.”

Da Silva, a former trade unionist who became an icon of the Brazilian and global left during his presidency, has led Bolsonaro in nearly every poll conducted over the past year. His optimism received another boost on Saturday, when final pre-election surveys from Brazil’s two largest pollsters showed him leading Bolsonaro 51% to 37% and 50% to 36%, with other candidates lagging far behind.

That put da Silva in range of a resounding victory in Sunday’s first round: If he garners an outright majority of votes, he would end the election without the need for a runoff election against Bolsonaro on Oct. 23.

It would mark a triumphant return for Brazil’s first working-class president, who during his presidency oversaw an economic boom that lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and positioned Brazil as an emerging global superpower. He left office with approval ratings above 80%, and the title of “the most popular politician in the world” bestowed on him by U.S. President Barack Obama.

His legacy seemed forever tarnished by a corruption conviction that sent him to prison in 2017. Brazil’s economy, meanwhile, collapsed under da Silva’s chosen successor, President Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016.

But da Silva’s conviction was annulled in 2019, after The Intercept Brazil exposed judicial and prosecutorial…