Lula and Bolsonaro hold final rallies ahead of Brazil's presidential runoff

Brazil’s presidential rivals wrapped up their campaigns on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva marching in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro riding a motorcycle caravan in the battleground state of Minas Gerais, according to Reuters.

Lula, 80, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, began his final day with a march along Rio’s Copacabana beach, where thousands of supporters joined him, before leading another march along São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, Reuters reported. “We’re going to win the election for one simple reason: it’s true that the people want change, (but) they want to move forward. They don’t want to go backward,” he told journalists before the rally.

For many Lula supporters the closing rallies carried a bittersweet note, Reuters reported, as the 80-year-old former union leader is widely expected to be making his final bid for office.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, joined a motorcycle caravan in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, a state no candidate has won the presidency without carrying since Brazil’s return to democracy in the 1980s, Reuters reported. The senator led Lula by around five percentage points in Minas Gerais in the first round.

The race remains neck and neck: a CNT/MDA poll published on Saturday showed Bolsonaro with a 1.3-point lead, Reuters reported. The Associated Press noted Lula lost the first round to the 45-year-old Bolsonaro by more than 2.2 million votes. Sunday’s runoff will decide whether Lula secures another term or Bolsonaro adds Brazil to the list of Latin American countries that have recently elected allies of US President Donald Trump.