Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced his re-election bid during a party event in Rio de Janeiro and made a speech where he focused on God, guns, and family, amid his attempts to beat his rival, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On Sunday, the right-wing Liberal Party (PL) tapped Bolsonaro as its nominee for the Oct. 2 vote before an audience of several thousand in Rio's Maracanazinho stadium. The move is considered the official beginning of the president's candidacy under Brazilian law.
Bolsonaro's Re-Election Bid
Bolsonaro's nomination comes as he continues to launch baseless attacks on the reliability of the country's electronic voting system, casting doubt on whether or not he would accept defeat. While the president did not directly touch on those matters on Sunday, his speech was heavy with praise for the armed forces.
In his remarks, Bolsonaro said that the army is on their side, adding that it was an army that does not accept corruption or accept fraud. He noted that the country's army was one that wanted transparency, as per Aljazeera.
With his image battered by inflation, the president is down almost 20 percentage points in some polls compared to Lula, who governed the country from 2003 to 2010 and lifted millions out of poverty thanks to aggressive social spending during a period of rapid commodity-driven growth.
The former president's star has fallen in recent years due to high-level corruption probes, alleging that he spent more than a year and a half in jail due to a corruption conviction that was later overturned, but he remains a relatively popular figure among Brazilians.
According to BBC, Bolsonaro promised to retain a welfare program that makes cash payments to poorer Brazilian citizens. On the other hand, Lula was officially nominated by the left-wing Worker's Party on Thursday.
Restoring Law and Order
During the event, the biggest jeers came when Bolsonaro mentioned the country's Supreme Court, whose members have gone to battle with the president's allies over unfounded election fraud claims.
A 59-year-old Rio schoolteacher, Very Carvalho, said that she hoped there would not be a coup, but noted that if there were, it would be the fault of the left for attempting to install a corrupt president. She added that Lula needs to go back to prison, calling him a vermin that needs to be removed.
In the coming weeks, the already tense political battle between the top two candidates is expected to heat up even further. Lula and Bolsonaro will be freed up by authorities in mid-August to engage in most forms of political advertising.
Bolsonaro also said in his speech that the country does not need another ideology that has not worked anywhere else in the world. He argued that the government needs to improve what it already has. The president acknowledged that life in the nation has not been easy but said that what comforted him was not seeing a communist being the president of the country.
The president has sought to characterize the upcoming race as a battle between good and evil, echoing the 2018 campaign that presented him as an outsider crusading to restore law, order, and conservative values to a wayward nation, the Associated Press reported.
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