Special Edition.

Political News Items.

1. Brazil’s top two presidential candidates will face each other in a runoff vote (scheduled for Sunday, 30 October) after neither got enough support to win outright Sunday in an election to decide if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office. With 98.8% of he votes tallied on Sunday’s election, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 48.1% support and incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.5% support. Brazil’s election authority said the result made a second round vote between the two candidates a mathematical certainty. The tightness of the result came as a surprise, since pre-election polls had given da Silva a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. “This tight difference between Lula and Bolsonaro wasn’t predicted,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said: “It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 was not a hiccup.” Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil’s southeast region, which includes populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria. “The polls didn’t capture that growth,” Cortez said.

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2. Mr. Lula da Silva huddled in Sao Paulo with his top advisers as the leftist former Brazilian president sought to pivot his campaign to the northeast of the country and the key state of Sao Paulo after a narrower-than-expected first round vote. A focus of his meetings with campaign advisers was also on how to broaden his coalition of supporters to include more centrist politicians -- the key grouping up for grabs as he and President Jair Bolsonaro start the clock on another month of campaigning before a runoff vote on Oct. 30. Lula, as he is widely known, took the most votes on Sunday. But at 48% to 43% for Bolsonaro, he failed to get an outright win, and the margin was closer than most pollsters had forecast. The 76-year-old leader met with campaign advisers Monday afternoon to map out areas in need of improvement and give marching orders.  “We need to close a few agreements, we need to talk with all the people who didn’t vote for us in the first round and who have representation so we can join forces,” Lula told reporters at the end of the meeting. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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3. A strong election night for allies of President Jair Bolsonaro have given his party the most seats in both chambers of Congress, highlighting the enduring strength of his conservative movement even if he falls short of re-election. His right-wing Liberal Party (PL), won 99 seats in the 513-member lower house, up from 77, and right-leaning parties allied with Bolsonaro now control half the chamber. The bigger surprise in Sunday's voting was in the Senate where Bolsonaro's party won 13 of the 27 seats up for grabs, with two more possible in second-round runoffs, a party spokesman said. The strong right-wing showing in legislative and gubernatorial races, especially in more affluent southeast Brazil, made Bolsonaro the election's big winner. (Source: reuters.com)

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