Runoff Rivals Battle Over Sao Paulo: Lula Headlines Paulista Rally on Safety as Bolsonaro Courts Mayors
The two runoff candidates took their fight to Sao Paulo on the same day, Sunday, October 11. Reuters reported that conservative Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who led the first round with 47 percent, met reelected Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas and spent his Sunday securing political backing, meeting mayors and city councilors. He promised that municipalities would receive more federal funding to combat crime if he is elected, saying federal resources would reach the ground level.
Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who trailed by two percentage points in the first round, headlined a major rally on Avenida Paulista organized by students and the scientific community to defend public funding for education and research — an event its organizers called a tsunami of hope. Speaking to reporters before taking the stage, Lula promised to redouble efforts on public safety, a top voter concern, saying that for working people and communities there should be protection, and for criminals, prison, and pledging direct federal involvement in a national overhaul of policing if reelected.
From atop a sound truck, Lula urged young voters to turn out and appealed to citizens over 70, for whom voting is optional. Among them was 79-year-old retired Petrobras employee Carlos Teobaldo da Silva, who wore his orange company uniform to the rally and said he felt compelled to vote for Lula's reelection despite having no obligation to do so.
Folha's later reporting put the March for Democracy at 12 blocks along Paulista Avenue, with rallies in 76 cities nationwide the same day. Sao Paulo is Brazil's most populous state, and with two weeks left in the runoff, both campaigns are treating it as the decisive battlefield.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：圣保罗保利斯塔大道上的游行人群。摄影：YasminF，CC BY-SA 4.0，取自 Wikimedia Commons
