Deeply divided, Brazilians overseas be part of lengthy queues to vote in tense presidential runoff

Brazilian Ieda Ferreira wakened on the daybreak to hitch a protracted queue in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, her residence for the previous 5 years, to vote in her nation’s presidential runoff. Brazil, she mentioned, was extra divided than ever.

“Brazil has become very polarised,” mentioned the 46-year-old, who wore all pink, the color of Brazil’s leftist Workers Party led by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “The government in power … preaches hate and violence.”

Ferreira is certainly one of tens of 1000’s in Lisbon, town with the biggest variety of Brazilian voters exterior the South American nation, queuing to forged their ballots in a tense race between Lula and Jair Bolsonaro.

Nearly 81,000 Brazilians in Portugal are eligible to vote, with greater than half registered in Lisbon, in accordance with consulate information.

Videos on social media additionally confirmed lengthy queues in London, Paris and Madrid. The queue to vote in Lisbon snaked across the metropolis’s regulation college, with divisions between voters on show. Some wore t-shirts with Lula’s identify and face on it whereas others wore Brazil’s yellow and inexperienced soccer jersey, which has develop into an emblem of these backing Bolsonaro.

Antonio Coelho, 80, wore a inexperienced shirt and a yellow vest and mentioned though he believed the consequence can be “very tight”, Bolsonaro would nonetheless win. “It’s important for him (Bolsonaro) to win because we don’t want a person who robbed the whole country, like Lula, as president,” Coelho mentioned.

Lula was jailed in 2018 for 19 months on bribery convictions that the Supreme Court overturned final 12 months.

Several polls confirmed the race between them tightening within the remaining week, with Bolsonaro eroding a slight lead for Lula. Others present a small however regular benefit for Lula.

Another Bolsonaro supporter, 65-year-old dentist Waldir Rodrigues, mentioned the far-right candidate “represented the best of Brazil”.

But whereas for some Bolsonaro is the one choice, his previous racist and homophobic remarks had been additionally the rationale why others have left Brazil since he was elected. “I didn’t want to live in a country ruled by Bolsonaro,” mentioned 38-year-old Gabriel Freitas as he held a rainbow flag. “I’m homosexual. I used to be in Rio (de Janeiro), it was harmful and I made a decision it was higher to not keep.

“I don’t want to go back… but my dad is still there and I want people in Brazil to live in love, not hate.”