Brazil votes in Bolsonaro-Lula showdown

Rio de Janeiro: Brazil was on a knife-edge on Sunday as voters chose between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist arch-rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in a presidential election seen as too close to call.

Both candidates cast their ballots in the morning, expressing confidence in victory in the runoff election, after a dirty and divisive campaign that has deeply polarized the nation of 215 million people. Some Brazilians voted with gusto, while others merely picked the candidate they least disliked.

“I think this has been the best government Brazil has ever had,” said Afro-Brazilian lawyer Eliane de Oliveira, 61, who voted for Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro´s Copacabana neighborhood, saying he was happy to have a government “that is not corrupt”, in a dig at the graft-tainted Lula.