BRASILIA: Brazilians began voting on Sunday in a polarized presidential race that could result in the election of a far-right former army captain, whose praise of past dictatorships enrages critics but whose promise of a brutal crackdown on crime and corruption has electrified his supporters.
Front-runner Jair Bolsonaro has surged in opinion polls in the past week, all but guaranteeing a spot in the second round of voting and raising a slim chance of a first-round victory.
He is riding a wave of anger at the establishment after the uncovering of one of the world’s largest political graft schemes, opposition to a return to power by the leftist Workers Party (PT) blamed for much of that corruption, and fears about spiking crime in the country with more murders than any other.
But Brazil is split over what cost to its democracy it may pay if it chooses Bolsonaro, a long-time congressman who has repeatedly praised the 1964-85 military regime and suggested that opponents could only win through electoral fraud, although he now vows to respect the democratic process.
Geneis Correa, a 46-year-old business manager in Brasilia, said she voted for Bolsonaro and would support a coup if the PT wins, blaming the party for rampant corruption.
“If they win, it will become Venezuela, people will be hungry, with a currency that is worth nothing,” she said, while exiting a polling station with her daughter.
“If the PT is voted into power and there is a military intervention, I would support it.”
Bolsonaro’s closest rival is PT candidate Fernando Haddad, a former mayor of Sao Paulo and one-time education minister. He is standing in for the party’s imprisoned founder, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Many Brazilians like 65-year-old Ruth Pereira Santos fondly remember the years of rapid growth that Lula oversaw and benefited from his programs that lifted many out of poverty.
“Who could buy a car? Through the love of God today I have a car in my garage. This wasn’t accessible before,” said Santos, a caretaker for the elderly.
Two polls published late on Saturday showed Bolsonaro had increased his lead over Haddad in the past two days, taking 36 percent of voter intentions compared with Haddad’s 22 percent. The pair are deadlocked in a likely run-off vote on Oct. 28 that is required if no candidate takes a majority of valid votes on Sunday.
Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) and the last will close at 7 p.m. Brasilia time (2200 GMT). Exit polls and official results will start flowing in soon after that because Brazil uses an electronic voting system.
The 147 million voters will choose the president, all 513 members of the lower house of Congress, two-thirds of the 81-member Senate plus governors and lawmakers in all 27 states.
Almost two-thirds of the electorate are concentrated in the more populous south and southeast of Brazil where its biggest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio Janeiro, are located — and where Bolsonaro holds a commanding lead. A quarter of the voters are in the less developed northeast, traditionally a PT stronghold.
’WE HAVE EVERYTHING’
In the most polarized election since the end of military rule in 1985, Bolsonaro is backed by a group of retired generals who have criticized the PT governments from 2003-2016 and publicly advocate military intervention if corruption continues.
In a final appeal for votes on a live Facebook stream on Saturday night, Bolsonaro, 63, called on Brazilians to help him clean up the political system and establish better government of Brazil’s rich mineral and agricultural resources.
“We have everything. What we need are politicians who are committed to their country and not to party interests,” he said from his home, where he is recovering from a near-fatal stabbing at a campaign rally. He underwent two emergency surgeries and it is not clear how much campaigning he will be able to do if the vote heads into a runoff.
Bolsonaro, who has compared his campaign to that of US President Donald Trump, dismissed as “fake news” accusations that he was sexist, racist and homophobic.
A Bolsonaro government would speed up the privatization of state companies to reduce Brazil’s budget deficit and relax environmental controls for farming and mining. It would also block efforts to legalize abortion, drugs and gay marriage.
Haddad, who has presented himself as a fiscally responsible moderate, spent the last day of the campaign targeting undecided voters in the Bahia state in Brazil’s northeast, the heartland of the PT’s support, but where Bolsonaro has made gains in polling.
Haddad took Bolsonaro to task for skipping the last presidential debate on Thursday, which other candidates said was a sign he was unprepared to govern. Bolsonaro said he could not attend on the orders of his medical team.
The PT candidate said Bolsonaro wants to “win in the first round vote without having to debate the issues and that is bad for democracy.”
“We have the ability to defeat what Bolsonaro stands for, in terms of reversing social gains, in terms of civility, in terms of solidarity and in terms of mutual respect,” Haddad said.
Brazilians vote in tense presidential race led by right-winger
Brazilians vote in tense presidential race led by right-winger
- Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro is thought to be in line for a third of the vote
- If Bolsonaro gets more than 50 percent of the vote to lead the field of 13 candidates, he will win the presidency outright
Russia jails 15 for life over IS-claimed 2024 concert hall attack
- Eleven other men were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links
- Four more men were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Thursday handed life sentences to four gunmen from Tajikistan, and 11 others it said were their accomplices, for the 2024 Crocus concert hall attack that left 150 people dead.
The March 2024 shooting spree was claimed by Daesh and was the deadliest militant attack in Russia in more than two decades.
Relatives of some of the victims stood in the grand Moscow military court as the verdict was read out.
Shamsidin Fariduni, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Makhammadsobir Fayzov and Saidakrami Rachabolizoda — all Tajik citizens who went on a shooting spree in the building before setting it on fire — looked down as the judge sentenced them to life.
Eleven other men — some Russian citizens — were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links.
Four more men — including a father and his sons — were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers.
The gunmen entered the concert hall shortly before a show by Soviet-era rock band Picnic. They went on a shooting spree before setting fire to the building, trapping many victims. The attack wounded more than 600 people. Six children were among those killed.
Uliana Filippochkina, whose twin brother Grigory was killed in the attack, flew from Siberia’s Novosibirsk for the verdict.
She said she was “satisfied” with the ruling and that she had looked the men who killed her twin in the eyes during their final statements in the trial.
“They didn’t explain anything, they tried to escape responsibility, appealing to the fact that they had wives and children... That they were under the influence of drugs,” she said.
- ‘No remorse’ -
“There was no sympathy or remorse whatsoever,” she added.
Her brother went to the concert shortly before his 35th birthday. The family were only able to identify what was left of his body weeks later, burying his remains in Novosibirsk.
The verdict came ahead of the second anniversary of the killings.
“For us all it’s like yesterday,” Ivan Pomorin, who was filming the Crocus Hall concert at the time, told AFP.
Lawyers said some of the victims are still being treated for their wounds, while others have severe PTSD, unable to sleep, use public transport or be in crowded places.
The four gunmen — aged 20 to 31 at the time — worked in various professions, among them was a taxi driver, factory employee and construction worker.
They stood in the glass defendant’s cage, surrounded by security guards.
According to media reports, Mirzoyev’s brother was killed fighting in Syria, possibly leading to his radicalization.
Hours after the attack, Russian police brought them to court with signs of torture — including one barely conscious in a wheelchair.
- ‘Redeem guilt with blood’ -
The attack came two years into Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Russia — bogged down by the offensive — dismissing prior US warnings of an imminent attack.
The Kremlin had suggested a Ukrainian connection at the time of the attack, but never provided evidence.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said after the verdict it was “reliably established” that the attack was “planned and committed in the interests of” Kyiv.
It accused the men of also plotting attacks in Dagestan.
TASS state news agency reported this month, citing a lawyer, that two of them — Dzhabrail Aushyev and Khusein Medov — had asked to be sent to fight in Ukraine instead of a life sentence.
Throughout its offensive, Russia has recruited prisoners for its military campaign, offering a buy-out from their sentences should they survive.
According to the lawyer quoted by TASS, Medov said he wanted to “redeem his guilt with blood.”
- Anti-migrant turn -
Russia — already undergoing a conservative social turn during the war — upped anti-migrant laws and rhetoric after the attack.
This has led to tensions with Moscow’s allies in Central Asia, some of whom have confronted Russia and called on it to respect the rights of their citizens.
Russia’s economy has for years been heavily reliant on millions of Central Asian migrants.
But their flow to Russia dipped after Moscow launched its Ukraine campaign and some Central Asians also held back from going to Russia after the post-Crocus migrant crackdowns.
