Sao Paulo - The second round of Brazil's presidential campaign kicked off Monday after right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro outperformed polling and robbed leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of an outright victory in the first round of voting.
With 99.9% of electronic votes counted, Lula had taken 48.4% of votes versus 43.2% for Bolsonaro. As neither got a majority of support, the race goes to a runoff vote on Oct. 30.
With a population of 215 million people and more than 150 million voters, Brazil has around 80% of its population identifying either as Catholic or evangelical. Both candidates have worked strategically to attract this electorate whose support may get to decide the next president when Brazilians go to vote.
The unexpectedly strong showing by Bolsonaro on Sunday dashed hopes for a quick resolution to the deeply polarized election in the world's fourth-largest democracy.
The race has proven tighter than most surveys suggested, revitalizing Bolsonaro's campaign after he insisted that polls could not be trusted. If he pulls off a comeback, it would break with a wave of victories for leftists across the region in recent years, including Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile.
The strong showing for Bolsonaro and his allies, which added to pressure on Lula to tack to the center, led bankers and analysts to expect a boost for Brazilian financial markets on Monday after Sunday's surprising result.
Lula put an optimistic spin on the result, saying he was looking forward to another month on the campaign trail and the chance to debate Bolsonaro head-to-head.
Religion plays a role
A poll by Datafolha institute shows that around 48% of Brazilians do consider religion when choosing their vote, while 34% claim they do not.
Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro is known for using a recurrent slogan: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone”.
On the eve of Brazil's independence bicentennial, in early September, priests and conservative groups inside the Catholic Church manifested their support in favor of Bolsonaro, citing Nicaragua's situation and other topics aligned to the president's politics.
However, a month away from the elections, another group with 450 priests published an open letter against his re-election, saying a new victory would imply a “foretold tragedy” that could put Brazil “in a deeper human crisis”.
Considering Bolsonaro's mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis in the country, delaying vaccination and opposing sanitary measures, as well as failing to stem hunger, it seems that although religion will continue having a significant weight, economic factors may also set the votes.
-Reuters/GlobVoice