00:07This Sunday millions of Brazilians vote in a run-off election that decides the
00:11country's political future. The contest pits incumbent president Lula da Silva
00:15against far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro. Let's now go live to Sao Paulo
00:19with Brian Mira correspondent for more details on how the electoral day is
00:23unfolding. Welcome, Ryan, to From the South. We're coming down to the final stretch
00:31here. There's less than an hour and a half until the end of voting today in a
00:36very important election. Definitely the oddest election that's ever happened at
00:41the presidential level in Brazil as the opponent of Lula da Silva is the son of a
00:47man who was arrested in 2022 for trying to implement a military coup.
00:52Now, in 2022, some of the circumstances that led to the investigation into a coup
00:59was the fact that the federal highway police blocked poor people from voting in
01:04regions that have a higher percentage of Lula supporters. Today, allegations are
01:09coming out in which the Workers' Party is calling for the immediate arrest of the
01:12transportation secretaries of Salvador and Sao Paulo for cutting bus service in poor
01:19neighborhoods to make it harder for poor people to come out to vote. Now, in the
01:23first-round election, the poor were over twice as likely to vote for Lula than they
01:28were for Bolsonaro, so this could have a significant effect on the results. Taking
01:32into consideration that both candidates pulled in a statistical tie before the
01:38election today and that Flavio Bolsonaro only won by 1.8 percent in the first-round
01:44election, Salvador and Sao Paulo together have more than 10 percent of the national
01:49population, more than 10 percent of the voters, so they cut 40 percent of the bus
01:56service allegedly in Sao Paulo. That could have a big effect on votes. It could make
02:02the difference between a victory or a loss for either of the two candidates. Specifically, it could make the difference
02:08between a victory or a loss for Flavio Bolsonaro. If 40 percent of the poor people on the
02:13periphery of Sao Paulo vote, it could be a big deal. So, once again, it started off,
02:18everything started off calm, and as we're getting into the final stretch, more and more
02:22allegations of illegal behavior, of fraudulent violations of the electoral law are
02:29coming to surface nationwide, and it's got a lot of people worried at the moment.
02:35What is, have they, the authorities, have they provided any kind of justification as to why the
02:40reason for the cutting the transportation service in the regions you just mentioned?
02:46Well, in Sao Paulo, there was a judicial order from the electoral court forcing the city
02:52government to guarantee 100 percent bus service today after complaints after the first-round election,
02:59and so the transportation secretary ignored the court order, and so far there's been no comment.
03:05They're obviously stalling for time. There's only, there's less than 90 minutes left before voting
03:10closes. It could be just one of these situations where they go, oh, well, we're sorry. Just as, you know,
03:16Mark Zuckerberg and Meador say, no, it was a technical glitch that we turned off Lula's Instagram page for
03:2224 hours during the campaign. I mean, these types of court cases can take months to sort out,
03:31so it's probably too late to do anything to reverse the damages caused by these massive cuts in bus
03:40services in Brazil's largest metropolitan area, and in its sixth largest metropolitan area of Salvador,
03:45which has a population of about three and a half million as well. Thank you, Brian, for this important
03:51update coming from Sao Paulo. We'll stay tuned with you as well in the upcoming news brief to have more
03:56information as the electoral day concludes.
