Brazil’s incumbent left-wing president faced off against his favored right-wing challenger Sunday in a narrow runoff election that will determine the direction of Latin America’s largest economy.
If he wins, Flávio Bolsonaro would secure the eighth consecutive rightist victory in Latin America’s presidential elections, boosting US efforts to influence the region.
The son of Brazil’s former president, Bolsonaro has pledged closer ties with Washington and lower public spending — the latter contributing to bullishness that saw markets surge after his first-round victory.
Despite relatively low unemployment and solid growth, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s popularity has wilted amid mass debt — partly explaining why both candidates delivered “costly pitches to voters… while saying little about how they’d pay for them,” Bloomberg wrote.