Lula Says South America Wants His Victory in Brazilian Elections

"You have the whole of South America wanting Brazil to win to see if we can once again coordinate a multilateral institution such as Unasur and try to discuss development projects," Lula told the press in Rio de Janeiro, accompanied by political allies such as Marcelo Freixo, candidate for governor, and André Ceciliano, candidate for senator.

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The presidential aspirant of the Workers' Party explained that "you cannot have in Brazil a president (alluding to Jair Bolsonaro) who makes fun of Argentina every day."

Argentina, he stressed, "is our main trading partner. You know? It's a stupid government. So we are going to have a hard time recovering a lot of things where the dismantling was done here," he admitted.

Lula called it stupid for a Brazilian ruler to provoke Argentina and added that, if elected, he would seek to talk to the region's leaders.

Bolsonaro, a Liberal Party candidate seeking re-election, frequently criticizes Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, a political ally of Lula.

During the elections in the neighboring country, the former military officer defended the re-election of Mauricio Macri, who ended up defeated by Fernandez.

In his speech, the former labor leader also advanced that at least eight European countries expressed interest in having a conversation by telephone on Monday, one day after the elections, to establish a new diplomatic relationship.

He warned that there is a prevailing uneasiness abroad about what could happen in Brazil after the polarized consultation and the possibility that Bolsonaro, seeing himself defeated, may try to create "confusion in the transition."

"There are many people worried about what could happen in Brazil. They don't know the number of calls we are receiving, the number of people who are signing up to come here to accompany the electoral process", remarked the favorite candidate to win at the polls on Sunday.

During the heated last presidential debate with the participation of seven candidates (out of 11) broadcast the previous night by TV Globo, Bolsonaro evaded and gave another answer when Senator Soraya Thronicke (Union Brazil) asked if he would stage a coup d'état and respect the result of the vote. The former Army captain resorted to blackmail by stating that he helped her to elect her as a congresswoman and that she even asked for positions in the federal government for allies during her administration, without referring to the question posed by the senator.