Lula and Bolsonaro face each other for the first time in a televised debate before the Brazilian elections

MADRID, 29 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, have faced each other for the first time in a televised debate this Sunday night, five weeks before the elections in Brazil.

Both presidential candidates, who are the two favorites in the upcoming elections in the South American country, have exchanged accusations in their first electoral debate.

Bolsonaro -- who had raised doubts about whether he would attend the call for this first debate -- has called Lula's government "the most corrupt in the history" of the country, an accusation that the former president has not directly refuted.

"His government was marked by kleptocracy, to gain support within Parliament. His government was the most corrupt in the history of Brazil," Bolsonaro said.

Lula, subsequently, has cited anti-corruption and transparency measures of his Executive. In addition, he has mentioned the successes of his mandate: more employment, inclusion, education, compared to less deforestation in the Amazon. "The country that I left is a country that people miss," Lula declared after accusing Bolsonaro of "destroying the country."

In addition to Lula and Bolsonaro, the candidate of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), Ciro Gomes, who stands as the third option due to the polarization of the favorites, has also participated in the debate; the candidate of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, Simone Tebet; Luiz Felipe de Novo and Soraya Thronicke from Unión Brasil.

According to the latest survey published by Datafolha, the data for mid-August show that Lula's Workers' Party leads the polls with 47 percent of voting intentions, compared to 32 percent for the country's current leader.

However, this gap between the candidates has been reduced in the last month, since the difference in July was 21 percentage points as opposed to the current 15.