Gloves off in Brazil as Bolsonaro, Lula launch campaigns
Ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro traded insults as they launched their campaigns for Brazil's October elections in duelling rallies highlighting the South American giant's deep divisions.
The two front-runners, who have in reality been campaigning for months, made it official on opening day with events that also showcased their polar-opposite styles.
Bolsonaro, 67, launched his campaign with a rally in Juiz de Fora, the small southeastern city where an attacker stabbed and nearly killed him during his 2018 campaign -- cementing his image in the minds of die-hard supporters as their "Messias," or Messiah, his middle name.
Lula meanwhile launched his campaign with a visit to a Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the industrial heartland of Sao Paulo state where the 76-year-old launched his political career as a union leader in the 1970s.
"I'm returning so we can take our country back," he said in his trademark gravelly voice, riling up the crowd with a fiery speech.
Slamming Bolsonaro as a "bogus, genocidal president," he condemned the "lies" he said the incumbent's camp was spreading about him in a bid to win the powerful Evangelical vote -- an estimated 31 percent of Brazil's 213 million people.
