The most contentious vote in Brazilian history

• Brazilians are voting in the second round of voting for president.
• The election pits far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro against his left-wing rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
• Polls indicate that Lula is expected to maintain his lead.

Brazilians are voting following what has been called the most divisive election campaign in the history of the nation, which pitted far-right President Jair Bolsonaro against his left-wing competitor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

According to the most current surveys, Lula is expected to maintain his lead against Bolsonaro going into Sunday’s second round of voting for president.

Polling conducted prior to the first round, however, understated voters’ support for the incumbent, igniting a public uproar and necessitating a second round.

On October 2, Brazil had a first round of voting, but none of the 11 presidential candidates won a clear majority.

With 48 and 43% of the vote, respectively, Lula and Bolsonaro qualified for the run-off on Sunday.

There will also be elections for governor in states where no candidate received a first-round majority.

After four years under Bolsonaro, Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, has pleaded with Brazilians to vote for him in order to “rebuild and reform” the nation.

He has promised to assist low-income people and reinstall environmental protection laws, particularly in the Amazon, where there has been a recent uptick in deforestation and attacks on Indigenous people.

In addition to encouraging economic growth and making promises to combat crime and corruption, Bolsonaro, whose campaign slogan is “God, family, country,” has proposed new support initiatives for the country’s poor. Additionally, he has emphasized conservative principles, such as his opposition to drugs and legalized abortion, and he has incorrectly warned that Lula’s return will result in the persecution of churches.

According to Brian Winter, vice president for policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, “Lula’s campaign is about the past; it is its biggest strength and largest weakness.” Winter made this statement to The Associated Press recently.

“People want to vote for him because they have fond memories of the economic boom of the 2000s. However, as Bolsonaro closes the distance, his unwillingness or incapacity to express novel concepts and bring in new faces has rendered him somewhat useless.

Brazilians of working class and rural communities have always supported Lula and his Workers’ Party. Conservatives, evangelical Christians, a significant voting bloc, and corporate groups support Bolsonaro.

According to Lucia Newman, the Latin America editor for Al Jazeera, observers will be closely watching what happens in Minas Gerais, an interior state in Brazil’s southeast that is seen as “a micro-sample of the Brazilian electorate.”

In Minas Gerais, where no Brazilian president has ever won without winning the state, every vote will matter if the election is as close as most analysts forecast, according to Newman.

According to analysts, misinformation has been a significant issue in Brazil throughout the election season, with much of it spreading via WhatsApp and social media sites like TikTok.

False claims have been made about Bolsonaro’s words confessing to cannibalism and paedophilia, while others have erroneously claimed that Lula wants to allow males to use public restrooms next to young girls.

According to Flora S Rebello Arduini, campaign director at SumOfUs, a nonprofit organisation that has kept track of the issue in relation to Brazil’s elections, there has been an upsurge in the transmission of false and misleading material on social media.

She told Al Jazeera that one of the most worrying aspects is that businesses have permitted adverts on content that promotes misinformation and hate speech while also seeding disbelief in the democratic process.

She continued by saying that a lot of the misinformation came from the Bolsonaro campaign. They are operating according to the plan [former US President Donald] Trump established for the 2020 elections.

That has been a significant worry.

Bolsonaro has claimed for months—without providing any supporting data—that widespread fraud can be committed in Brazil’s electronic voting system. He has been charged of having plans to challenge the election results in a manner similar to Trump, whom he has imitated.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has voiced sympathy for the authoritarian military system that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, which human rights organisations have called a “brutal dictatorship.” Due to the increased tensions surrounding the present election campaign, lawmakers in the US and Europe have called on Bolsonaro to respect the outcome.

Numerous European lawmakers stated that it was “critical” to prevent Brazil’s military leadership from supporting “a coup” in a letter sent late last month to Josep Borrell, the head of foreign policy for the European Union, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

Many Brazilian voters, according to Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo, saw the election as “a crucial war over the future of Brazilian democracy,” prior to the first round.

Human Rights Watch experts Deborah Brown and Maria Laura Canineu recently reiterated that sentiment, adding that given Brazil’s size and significance, the “important test for democracy and the rule of law” may have ramifications beyond of the nation.

Additionally, the future of the Amazon, which is crucial to halting climate change, is in jeopardy. Under Bolsonaro’s leadership, the largest rainforest in the world has seen a sharp increase in deforestation, drawing widespread condemnation.

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