Guns, God and fake news dominate Brazil’s presidential race
The Brazilian presidential election is in full swing. More than 5,000 candidates are filing their paperwork to be on the November 7 ballot.
Cristina Martins/AP
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Originally published on December 7, 2014 10:03 pm
It will take until December 8 to settle this election contest once-and-for-all. But there’s already plenty of turmoil that could make it difficult.
There’s a good chance that the two main candidates, Dilma Rousseff and ex-president Luiz Iná Vaz, don’t even realize they’re in the running until they’re actually in the running. That’s because the contest is so polarized. Just about all the candidates have their own ideas about what kind of president they would be.
And now the debate turns to the role of guns and religion in politics, which has become an issue in two different parts of the country.
The candidates seem to be in agreement that there are too many guns in the country, and too many of them are owned by the rich. Rousseff has promised to loosen gun laws, and Vaz wants to toughen gun laws.
A big question that’s been asked a lot is whether religion should trump guns.
In one corner is Brazil’s most famous Catholic Pope, Pope Francis, and in the other corner is a former Catholic presidential candidate, former communist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Both say they’re for less gun control, and neither said they would disarm people. They’re also split over whether the pope should have the authority to issue new papal guidelines.
Rousseff has been endorsed by Pope Francis. Vaz has said he’s not backing out of his presidential pledge, so his candidacy is on uncertain footing.
Rousseff’s campaign manager, Ciro Gomes, is in the middle. He’s a former senator from the state of Rio de Janeiro. He’s supported the former leftist president, Lula, and