During a live televised debate on Tuesday night, Brazil's top two presidential candidates fired accusations at one another as the race between President Dilma Rousseff and challenger Aecio Neves gets tighter, The Associated Press reported.
The debate seemed to have no clear winner ahead of the Oct. 26 election, according to the AP.
Nevers, a senator and former state governor, accused Rousseff of allowing the state-run oil company Petrobras to use money from bribes to the Workers' Party, the AP reported. One of the top Petrobras figures involved in the scandal said one of Rousseff's allies in the Workers' Party benefited from the scheme.
Rousseff responded by pointing to an airport Neves built near an uncle's farm when he was governor of the Minas Gerais state, according to the AP. She also accused him of nepotism by giving government jobs to a sister, uncles and cousins.
It went on as Neves criticized Rousseff's government for paying 11,400 Cuban doctors working in Brazil one third of their salaries with the rest going to the Cuban government, the AP reported.
"I've spent my entire life combatting corruption," Rousseff shot back after Neves accused here, according to the AP. "I'm going to respond looking into your eyes - you're being irresponsible, candidate, irresponsible," Neves responded to Rousseff.
Rousseff continued to argue she herself has removed those accused of corruption in her own government, forcing out several Cabinet minister when she first began her term, the AP reported.
Rousseff warned Brazilians that the election of her pro-business challenger Aecio Neves would lead to unemployment and put at risk social benefits gained under 12 years of rule by her Workers' Party, according to the AP.
Neves, who acknowledged big strides had been made in improving the social-class standing of Brazil's people under Rousseff's mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, insisted Brazil had stopped growing under Rousseff and that inflation was out of control, the AP reported.
"The fear in Brazilian society today is that the Workers' Party will continue in power for another four years," Neves said, expressing a widespread desire for change in Brazil, according to the AP.
