Bolsonaro confident of victory switches presidential campaign to "cruise control"

Bolsonaro confident of victory switches presidential campaign to “cruise control”

Friday, October 19th 2018 - 06:54 UTC

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Bolsonaro has a sizeable lead in opinion polls over his leftist rival, Workers Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad, ahead of the Oct. 28 run-off vote

“We’re within reach (of the presidency), it’s true,” Bolsonaro said, adding Haddad was “not going to gain 18 million votes between now and two Sunday’s time”

The candidate is still recovering from a near-fatal stab wound received on the campaign trail, which has forced him to keep a lower profile

Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro said that electoral victory was “within reach” and his campaign team said it had now switched to “cruise control” as it seeks to avoid hiccups and glide to the finish line.

Bolsonaro has a sizeable lead in opinion polls over his leftist rival, Workers Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad, ahead of the Oct. 28 run-off vote. He is now seeking to ride to the presidency on a wave of anger over graft, rising violence and a weak economy.

“We’re within reach (of the presidency), it’s true,” he told reporters in Rio de Janeiro after a campaign visit to the federal police. Haddad was “not going to gain 18 million votes between now and two Sunday’s time,” he said.

Bolsonaro will skip presidential debates and large campaign events, his would-be chief of staff, Congressman Onyx Lorenzoni, anticipated earlier in the week.

The candidate is still recovering from a near-fatal stab wound received on the campaign trail, which has forced him to keep a lower profile. His poll numbers have increased since the Sept. 6 assassination attempt.

However, Bolsonaro, who has pledged a crackdown on crime if he is elected, has made several high-profile visits to law enforcement gatherings in Rio. Lorenzoni said debates were pointless and made no difference to his candidate’s commanding lead in the race.

The former army captain has previously suffered in the polls after debate appearances, where he has revealed a relative lack of expertise on economic matters under tough questioning.

In recent days, with victory ever-closer, Bolsonaro has ordered his team to step back from the limelight to avoid making public declarations that could hurt him in the final few days of the race, campaign sources revealed.

Bolsonaro’s hands-off strategy poses a major problem for Haddad, who faces an uphill battle to unify opposition to the poll-leader. He is also struggling to add luster to the damaged brand of the PT, which ran Brazil for 13 of the last 15 years and is blamed by many for the country’s woes.

The party’s founder, former president Lula da Silva, is in jail after a corruption conviction, and as Lula’s hand-picked candidate, Haddad is struggling to escape the shadow of a figure who is either loved or loathed by many in Brazil.

Bolsonaro has run an unorthodox campaign, relying on social media and grass roots rallies that have won him legions of fans who delight at his sharp words and Twitter putdowns. Nonetheless, polls show he is also widely disliked by many in the electorate who have been alienated by years of his misogynist, racist and homophobic comments.