The electoral colleges of Brazil opened this Sunday for the presidential, legislative and regional elections, in which former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appears as a favorite in all the polls against the current president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Brazil is the fourth largest democracy in the world, with 156 million registered voters and a compulsory voting system. Also to be elected on Sunday are 513 members of the lower house, a third of the Senate, as well as governors in 27 states.
With today's event the social tension will not end. On the contrary. If Lula wins in the first round today, it is quite likely that Bolsonaro will denounce a non-existent fraud, following the example of Donald Trump to the letter. “If there is fraud, many people will take to the streets,” said a policeman guarding the entrance to the presidential compound.
Surely he had knowledge of the cause. Almost half of the military police actively participate in Bolsonarist networks. At the same time, Bolsonaro has filled his administration with the military. His vice-presidential candidate is an army general, Walter Braga Neto. Defense Minister Sergio Nogueira, another military man, has demanded the participation of the armed forces in an audit of the elections.
Bolsonaro himself has hinted this morning that he might not recognize the electoral result if irregularities are detected: "If the elections are clean, no problem. May the best win", he has moved the journalists gathered in front of his polling station after depositing their ballot.
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the great favorite in the polls, voted this Sunday in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a city in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo where he began his political career, and stated that the country needs to "recover the right to be happy".
"The country needs to recover the right to be happy. We want a country that lives in peace, with hope and that believes in the future," Lula told reporters after voting at a public school in that town, where he arrived thirteen minutes after polling stations opened in the country.
Lula said that they are the "most important" elections for him, who governed for two terms, between 2003 and 2010, after having lost the elections in 1989, 1994 and 1998.
"In 2018 I could not vote because I was in prison, the victim of a lie, and four years later I am voting with recognition of my total freedom and the possibility of becoming president of this country again and that it return to normal," added Lula, who he remained in jail for 580 days for two corruption convictions, later annulled by the Supreme Court.
For his part, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, went to vote at a polling station in the Villa Militar in Rio de Janeiro, dressed in a yellow sports shirt with a green collar and the national flag printed on the chest, and apparently, wearing a bulletproof vest underneath.
"We are calm (...) in the first round, the elections are decided today," Bolsonaro said in brief remarks to journalists as he left the polling station.
