Brazil Moderates Flop, Setting the Stage for Lula-Bolsonaro Showdown
- Polarizing front-runners taking nearly 75% of voter intentions
- Bolsonaro gains support as former judge drops out, poll shows
Jair Bolsonaro, center, during a re-election campaign event in Brasilia.
Photographer: Gustavo Minas/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Moderate presidential candidates look increasingly far from posing a challenge to Brazil’s most polarizing political figures, Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in the October elections.
With friendly fire and miscalculations, centrist presidential hopefuls are undermining long-shot efforts to give voters a “third way” -- an alternative to the nation’s right-wing and leftist front-runners. Six months before Brazilians go to the polls, opinion surveys show incumbent Bolsonaro, 67, and former President Lula, 76, capturing nearly three quarters of voter intention.