RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday that electoral victory was “within reach” and his campaign team said it had now switched to “cruise control” as it seeks to avoid hiccups and glide to the finish line.
Bolsonaro has a sizeable lead in opinion polls over his leftist rival, Workers Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad, ahead of the Oct. 28 run-off vote. He is now seeking to ride to the presidency on a wave of anger over graft, rising violence and a weak economy.
“We’re within reach (of the presidency), it’s true,” he told reporters in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday after a campaign visit to the federal police. Haddad was “not going to gain 18 million votes between now and two Sunday’s time,” he said.
Bolsonaro will skip presidential debates and large campaign events, his would-be chief of staff, Congressman Onyx Lorenzoni, told Reuters on Tuesday.
The candidate is still recovering from a near-fatal stab wound received on the campaign trail, which has forced him to keep a lower profile. His poll numbers have increased since the Sept. 6 assassination attempt.
However, Bolsonaro, who openly defends Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship and has pledged a crackdown on crime if he is elected, has made several high-profile visits to law enforcement gatherings in Rio.
Lorenzoni said debates were pointless and made no difference to his candidate’s commanding lead in the race.
When asked on Wednesday whether he would appear at debates, Bolsonaro did not answer.
The former army captain has previously suffered in the polls after debate appearances, where he has revealed a relative lack of expertise on economic matters under tough questioning.
In recent days, with victory ever-closer, Bolsonaro has ordered his team to step back from the limelight to avoid making public declarations that could hurt him in the final few days of the race, campaign sources told Reuters.
Luciano Bivar, a federal congressman and founder of Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal Party (PSL), said it was the right strategy.