The most polarizing election in decades.. Brazilians vote for a new president

Brazilian voters head to the polls today in a presidential election, as the latest opinion polls show Brazilian leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a strong lead over current far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and close to an outright victory.

Brazil's most polarizing election in decades will decide whether a former president who served time in prison on corruption charges or a right-wing populist who has attacked the voting system and threatened to challenge his defeat will return to power.

According to two opinion polls released in the afternoon, Lula appears to have the majority of valid votes and could win the election from the first round, which would avoid a difficult run-off on October 30.

While none of the 11 candidates received more than 50 percent of the vote, the two candidates with the most votes will run for the second round of elections on October 30. 

The two candidates, Lula and Bolsonaro, accused each other of corruption in the last debate before the elections.

President Bolsonaro regards his leftist rival, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, as the head of a criminal gang that ran a "government of thieves" during his two-term presidency from 2003 to 2010.

For his part, Lula described Bolsonaro as a "shameless" liar whose government covered up the graft in the procurement of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic that claimed the lives of more than 680,000 Brazilians.

It should be noted that Brazil's electronic voting system, which Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized as being vulnerable to fraud without providing evidence to the National Elections Authority, allows results to be quickly tallied within hours after polls close at 5 pm (20:00 GMT).

The President of the National Elections Authority, President of the Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, urged Brazilians on the social networking site "Twitter" to celebrate democracy in the country by going out to vote "in peace, security, harmony, respect and freedom."

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