Voting in Brazil pits good against evil, says Bolsonaro at re-election launch

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro looks on during a welcome ceremony to receive Brazilians and foreigners evacuated from Ukraine during the repatriation mission, at Brasilia Air Base, in Brasilia, Brazil March 10, 2022. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

BRASILIA, March 27 (Reuters) – Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro kicked off his re-election campaign on Sunday, telling thousands of cheering supporters that opinion polls were wrong and he was sure to win the election of this year which oppose good to evil.

Bolsonaro faces a tough challenge to win re-election against his political enemy, leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Many Brazilians are angry with Bolsonaro’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, rising inflation and high fuel prices. Lula, whose Workers’ Party (PT) governed Brazil from 2003 to 2016, maintains a 13-15 point lead in the polls over Bolsonaro.

“A fake poll published a thousand times will not elect a president,” Bolsonaro said in a nationalist speech to supporters dressed in the yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag. “I am certain of victory because I have an army at my side, and that army is made up of each of you.”

Bolsonaro will represent the conservative Liberal Party, which said it was launching its “pre-campaign” because official campaigning has yet to begin for the October election.

Bolsonaro said his government had succeeded in cutting red tape, including easing restrictions on owning and carrying firearms, which he said reduced violence in Brazil.

Last week he again criticized the country’s electronic voting system which he says is vulnerable to fraud that could rob him of victory, renewing fears he may refuse to accept defeat as his idol politician, former US President Donald Trump.

“What we want is to deliver a country in the future, well in the future, which is much better than the one I received in 2019,” Bolsonaro said at the event in Brasilia. “It’s not a fight of left versus right, it’s a fight of good versus evil.”

Riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle away from the event, Cristiane Sade, 53, said Bolsonaro was a patriot and a better president than Lula.

“He doesn’t take public money to fund leftist ideas that are great in theory but never work in practice,” she said.

Reporting by Anthony Boadle; edited by Diane Craft

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