There’s a Gotham City-esque really feel to the towering skyscrapers that dominate the skyline in each course so far as the attention can see.
Sao Paulo is a megacity.
It’s a bustling monetary hub, dwelling to over 12 million folks. The metropolis correct is essentially the most populous within the Americas, the western and southern hemispheres.
It’s the biggest Portuguese-speaking metropolis on the earth – and that features Portugal.
Sao Paulo has unbelievable wealth and dreadful poverty.
It is a deeply divided place. And is the proper metaphor for Brazil‘s presidential election that’s tearing the nation aside.
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Across the nation they’re voting within the second spherical of this election after neither the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, nor his foremost opponent Lula da Silva secured the important 50% plus one vote wanted for victory earlier this month.
The nation is on a knife’s edge. It’s unimaginable to inform the place that is going.
Both candidates are populists in their very own methods.
Jair Bolsonaro is commonly in comparison with Donald Trump, and he actually apes his United States’ buddy’s method to religion, gender points, gun possession, and human rights – and seems to concurrently take pleasure in abject rudeness with a tenuous adherence to reality if it does not swimsuit his private agenda.
Like Trump, he and his advisers have been casting the election as rigged in opposition to them.
This week his 26-year-old son Flavio Bolsonaro mentioned his father is “the victim of the largest electoral fraud ever seen”, although they’ve supplied no proof.
And if Bolsonaro does win, that allegation will in all probability be dropped immediately.
He may win, the polls are neck and neck.
There is worry amongst Lula da Silva’s supporters that they misplaced momentum after the primary spherical, that the polls had given them an inflated sense of confidence, and that the election outcome may not go their manner.
Lula, a former president, is bidding to stage a exceptional comeback to the highest of the political ladder.
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Arrested in 2018 on corruption fees, later quashed, he was constantly the preferred political chief on the earth with approval scores within the 80s and 90s throughout his time in workplace from 2003 till 2011.
Many thought he may win the presidency within the first spherical on 1 October. He did not, and worse for him and his celebration, President Bolsonaro closed the hole to a handful of factors.
Now all the pieces is to play for.
The polling firms in Brazil are very refined, however their outcomes have been questioned by many.
There is a big commerce in election merchandise right here; towels, flags, buttons, and caps for each candidates are offered on road corners and out of doors nearly each subway station and at newsagents.
Saulo Adriel and his brother arrange retailer on Paulista Avenue, this metropolis’s equal of Oxford Street, and he is doing an enormous commerce in presidential merch.
Hanging on the visitors lights subsequent to a pedestrian crossing, Saulo has a chalkboard the place he retains a working tally which candidate’s merchandise is promoting the most effective.
He instructed me after the primary spherical it was actually neck and neck, however in the present day, Lula seemed to be effectively forward. That could possibly be as a result of he was about to carry a rally on the identical road.
The actual level is Saulo says he is been totalling his figures up, and it seems to be too near name.
“I don’t know who is going to win anymore. This is the most polarised election in history, I guess,” he instructed me whereas overseeing extra gross sales.
“I think there will be 500,000 to one million votes difference between them, though I can’t say, literally, who is going to win.”
While I spoke to him, he up to date the chalkboard with one other two gross sales for Lula.
Still, it is so shut he is investing his cash on each of them.
“My brother and I have already invested in 1,000 Bolsonaro supporter badges and 1,000 Lula badges, so it’s fifty-fifty, you know?”
The two candidates have completed their closing election rallies.
President Bolsonaro took to his motorbike in Belo Horizonte in Brazil’s south, and was greeted by hundreds of adoring supporters, some additionally on their bikes.
Belo Horizonte is a bellwether state that normally predicts the eventual winner.
On Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, Lula da Silva was greeted by large numbers of partying supporters as he took to a cavalcade via town.
In the group we met a gaggle of college professors who have been there wearing white, versus the celebration’s ordinary purple.
They defined the rally had been divided right into a collection of colors, and white indicated that they have been there demonstrating for the safety of democratic rules and peace.
Marcos Oliveira, a professor on the University of Rio de Janeiro, instructed me he believes the behaviour of Donald Trump and his supporters after his election loss has been co-opted by Bolsonaro’s staff, and threatens Brazilian democracy.
“The ideology behind Bolsonaro’s administration is the very same one that was built for Donald Trump,” he mentioned.
“So, the structure behind it and the narratives are exactly the same, the difference is we know now in advance because of what happened with the elections in the United States, it prepared the groundwork for us to strike back, so we need to have this in mind.”
Standing subsequent to him, his pal Professor Ariel Silva from Sao Paulo, nodded in settlement.
“Their strategy is very similar to the strategy of Trump in the last election, so we more or less have an idea what to expect, but we are here to fight for democracy,” Silva added.
On the ultimate day then, both may win, it appears to be that shut.
The drawback for Brazil is that the divisions are so deep any reconciliation between the 2 sides will show extremely troublesome.
Source: information.sky.com”