Brazil's Bolsonaro, Lula in first head-to-head debate
Far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded jabs and insults as they squared off in their first-ever head-to-head debate, two weeks from Brazil's presidential runoff election.
Lula attacked Bolsonaro as the "king of fake news," drawing accusations of lying, corruption and a "disgraceful" record in return, as the rivals sparred in the first debate for their polarising second-round showdown on October 30.
Lula, the charismatic but tarnished ex-president (2003-2010) who is seeking a comeback at 76, was particularly fiery criticising Bolsonaro over his handling of Covid-19, which has killed 687,000 people in Brazil, second only to the United States.
Attacking Bolsonaro over his resistance to buying vaccines and touting of unproven medications such as hydroxychloroquine, Lula said the president "carries the weight of those deaths on his shoulders."
In a feisty, free-wheeling debate with minimal intervention by moderators, Bolsonaro, 67, tried to drag the focus to the issue of corruption -- a weak spot for Lula, who was jailed in 2018 on controversial, since-overturned graft charges.
"Your past is disgraceful... You did nothing for Brazil but stuff public money in your pockets and those of your friends," Bolsonaro said.
But many opinion polls had put Lula's lead in the double digits.
