ShareSAO PAULO, Brazil: Brazil's opposition slammed President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday as "depraved" for suggesting a group of Venezuelan girls that he visited in their home were prostitutes, as the country gears up for a presidential run-off. Bolsonaro will face left-wing former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in the second round of a presidential election on October 30, with the expectation of a close contest pushing both sides to intensify their attacks in the run-up.
Local media aired an interview with Bolsonaro about the situation in Venezuela in which he recalled a visit last year to a poor neighborhood in Brazil's capital where he met a group of Venezuelan girls. The president said he had asked a group of "three or four very pretty 14 or 15-year-olds" if he could "come in your house", where he found "15 or 20 girls" getting ready "to earn a living." The leader of Lula's opposition party, Gleisi Hoffmann, quickly slammed Bolsonaro's comments as "depraved" and "criminal," while Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, coordinator of Lula's campaign, expressed "disgust."
Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that Brazil would suffer the same fate as Venezuela if Lula wins the election. According to polling organizations, Lula has a lead over the president. In the interview, Bolsonaro said: "I parked my motorcycle on a street corner, took off my helmet and started looking at the girls, three or four very pretty 14 or 15-year-olds, dressed up as you might be on a Saturday in a neighborhood community.
"There were 15 or 20 girls (in the house), all Venezuelans aged 14, 15, getting ready on a Saturday. Why? To earn a living," he said. "That's what you want for your daughter?" Bolsonaro has responded to the criticism, saying he had entered the house with other people and in the presence of a film crew.
Meanwhile, Leftist front-runner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's lead over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro remains steady at six percentage points ahead of Brazil's October 30 presidential runoff election, according to a poll released.
Lula has 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for Bolsonaro, the Datafolha institute found, the same numbers as its last poll on October 7. The figures exclude voters who plan to cast blank or spoiled ballots-five percent of respondents, Datafolha found.
The margin of error for the poll, which was based on interviews with 2,898 people Thursday and Friday, was plus or minus two percentage points. The latest numbers came as a battle brewed in Brazil over pollsters, which largely underestimated Bolsonaro's support in the first-round election on October 2.
Datafolha, for instance, had found Bolsonaro trailing Lula by 14 percentage points on the eve of the first round. In the event, the incumbent finished just five points shy: 48 percent to 43 percent. Bolsonaro cried foul after the election, accusing polling firms of trying to muzzle his popularity. "We beat the lie," he said. Federal police reportedly opened an investigation into polling firms Thursday at the request of Bolsonaro's justice ministry over alleged "criminal practices."
Competition regulators, meanwhile, opened a separate investigation into whether the firms had carried out an "orchestrated action" to "manipulate" the elections. However, the head of the Superior Electoral Tribunal, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the investigations halted late Thursday, saying they were "usurping" electoral officials' authority.
The probes "appear to show an intent to satisfy (Bolsonaro's) will," wrote Moraes, instructing electoral officials to open an investigation of their own into a possible "abuse of power." Bolsonaro hit back at Moraes, who doubles as a Supreme Court justice and is a frequent target of attacks from the president. "The polling firms are going to keep lying. How many votes are they dragging to the other side? People generally vote for whomever's in the lead," Bolsonaro said. - AFP
