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President Jair Bolsonaro hinted Wednesday that he might decline to run for reelection in Brazil's elections scheduled for October 2022.
"I have not launched myself; I do not know yet if I will be a candidate," said the former military officer during an interview with Jovem Pan radio station in the municipality of Itapetininga, Sao Paulo state.
Before supporters, Bolsonaro also commented that he did not know if he would be a candidate with the current electronic voting system.
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In addition, on July 1, he assured that, if he loses at the polls, he will only hand over the presidential sash if the elected candidate won cleanly, in another reference to the printed ballot system.
Bolsonaro questions the reliability of the electronic voting system, which has been used in Brazil without problems for decades and which gave him the victory in the 2018 suffrage.
He wants to change it for the printed ballot and threatens not to accept an eventual electoral defeat with the current system.
A new voting intention poll revealed on July 7 that former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva outperforms Bolsonaro in all scenarios for next year's vote.
The poll data, the result of a partnership between Genial Investimentos and Quaest Consultoria e Pesquisas, revealed that Lula exhibits a preference of 43 to 45 percent of respondents against 28 to 29 percent for Bolsonaro.
In Brazil, general threatens no elections unless there are measures to protect Bolsonaro from alleged fraud, Congress responds by considering introducing a semipresidentialist system. Both moves mean the same: the right fears the ballot in 2022 and is looking for alternatives. https://t.co/qbiMldY2ZN
— Rodrigo Nunes (@OrangoQuango) July 22, 2021
A total of 1.5 thousand people were interviewed over 16 years in 27 Brazilian capitals, totaling 95 cities across the country.
According to the survey, the biggest problem is Bolsonaro himself. According to the survey, the economy will be the one that can ensure his reelection, pointed out political scientist Felipe Nunes, coordinator of the survey and executive director of Quaest.
According to the expert, the former Army captain can hardly be elected if the economy does not help and does not improve the voter's sense of well-being because the main concerns will be employment and the increase in prices, which erodes the income of Brazilians.
Bolsonaro's unpopularity coincides with work being done on a Senate committee investigating the government's management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It also coincides with the arrival of a second wave of the disease that has claimed more than 545,000 deaths.
Lula's voting intentions have strengthened since he regained his political rights in March after a Federal Supreme Court judge annulled all his convictions.
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