Brazil’s TV Globo cancelled its final presidential debate on Thursday, 1 October, after both leading candidates declined to attend and last-minute court decisions changed the arrangements for the broadcast. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had already rejected the invitation. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro withdrew hours before the programme, leaving voters without a final televised confrontation between the frontrunners before Sunday’s first-round election. In its cancellation statement, Globo cited legal uncertainty caused by judicial decisions affecting rules previously agreed with the campaigns. The broadcaster’s explanation, therefore, went beyond the absence of the two leading candidates. (noticias.uol.com.br) Bolsonaro withdraws hours before broadcast Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, initially intended to participate. Reuters reported that he withdrew after Lula declined to attend. Earlier in the week, the senator had said Lula was the opponent he wanted to debate. The president has avoided televised debates during this election campaign, arguing that the format does not always produce useful discussion for voters. His rivals have accused him of avoiding scrutiny. (reuters.com) Bolsonaro separately attributed his withdrawal to what he described as censorship by the electoral court. That was his criticism of a judicial decision, rather than a finding that the Court had unlawfully censored the event. Both frontrunners instead appeared in online broadcasts around the time the debate had been scheduled, according to the Associated Press. (apnews.com) Court rulings alter the debate arrangements One ruling from the Superior Electoral Court prevented Globo from prominently displaying an empty podium identifying Lula and allowing questions directed at the absent president. A separate Supreme Federal Court decision required the broadcaster to include Renan Santos, another presidential candidate. Brazilian news outlet UOL reported that Globo received the decisions shortly before the programme and considered them incompatible with the arrangements it had made. The network said its purpose was to allow voters to compare proposals, but argued that successive last-minute decisions created uncertainty over how it could conduct the broadcast. It then cancelled the event. (noticias.uol.com.br) The Electoral Court’s ruling on the empty podium addressed a specific part of the proposed format. According to Metrópoles, the judge considered that allowing references and questions to an absent candidate could create an imbalance between participants. The rulings changed the debate conditions; Globo made the decision to cancel. They should not be described as a court order requiring the entire programme to be scrapped. (metropoles.com) Lula leads the latest first-round poll A Datafolha survey released on Thursday put Lula at 42 percent of total voting intentions, compared with 38 percent for Bolsonaro. Folha de S. Paulo, which commissioned the survey with TV Globo, reported that both candidates had risen by two percentage points from the previous poll, within the survey’s margin of error. When blank votes, null votes, and undecided respondents were excluded, the poll gave Lula 45 percent of estimated valid votes and Bolsonaro 40 percent. These are different measures from the same survey. The 42–38 figures describe total voting intentions, while the 45–40 figures estimate the distribution among valid votes. Neither set is an election result. (www1.folha.uol.com.br) That distinction matters because the threshold for winning the presidency in the first round is based on valid votes, rather than the proportion of every respondent in an opinion poll. Runoff projection remains close In a simulated second round, Datafolha recorded 48 percent for Lula and 45 percent for Bolsonaro. Reuters reported that the survey interviewed 2,506 people between 29 September and 1 October and had a margin of error of two percentage points. It described the runoff projection as a technical tie. The hypothetical matchup indicates how respondents answered a particular question before voting. It does not establish that these candidates will reach the second round or predict the eventual winner. (reuters.com) Voting begins on Sunday Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court confirms that the first round takes place on Sunday, 4 October. Any presidential runoff is scheduled for 25 October. If no candidate obtains more than half of the valid votes in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes proceed to the second. Thursday’s cancellation leaves voters without the planned final exchange between the leading campaigns. Whether Lula and Bolsonaro will debate each other later depends first on the election results and then on their participation in any second-round events. (tse.jus.br, tse.jus.br)
