Brazilians, fed up with years of graft scandals, soaring crime and economic recession, began voting on Sunday in a divisive presidential contest led by two political opposites: an ex-army officer riding on dictatorship nostalgia and the political heir of an imprisoned leftist icon.
Jair Bolsonaro, a retired captain and veteran congressman, topped the polls in a field of 13 candidates in Latin America’s biggest economy, with a projected 38% of the votes, according to pollster Datafolha. According to an exit poll by the Ibope polling agency for the O Globo news organization, Bolsonaro finished first with 45% of votes, more than any other candidate.
In second place was former São Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, who is on the ballot because Brazil’s most popular politician, ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption and can’t run. Da Silva named the relatively little-known Hadded as his replacement in the campaign; the Workers’ Party candidate was projected to win about 24% of the vote. According to the Globo exit poll, Haddad won 28%.
If no candidate receives more than 50%, the top two vote-getters will face off in an Oct. 28 runoff vote. A global wave that has upended establishment politicians from the U.S. to Europe also weakened moderate politicians in Brazil, whom voters see as representing a corrupt elite and offering scant solutions to the nation’s economic and social troubles.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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