RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilians began casting ballots on Sunday in their most divisive presidential election in years, with a far-right politician promising an iron-fisted crackdown on crime, Jair Bolsonaro, the firm favourite in the first round.

Surveys suggest the 63-year-old former paratrooper, who wants to cut spiralling debt through sweeping privatisations and embrace the United States and Israel, could count on more than one in three voters in the vast Latin American nation.

But at least as many in the 147-million-strong electorate reject the veteran federal lawmaker.

He is known for repeated offensive comments against women, gays and the poor, and for lauding the military dictatorship Brazil shucked off just three decades ago.

If Bolsonaro gets more than 50 per cent of the vote to lead the field of 13 candidates, he will win the presidency outright. Otherwise, a run-off will be held on Oct 28.

Analysts say a first-round victory for Bolsonaro is possible — but unlikely.

The last surveys released late Saturday credited Bolsonaro with 36 per cent against 22 per cent for his nearest rival, leftist former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad.

Voting began at 8am (1100 GMT) under tight security.

Haddad, 55, has picked up support that still exists for leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Workers Party icon jailed for corruption who was declared ineligible from making a comeback because of a failed appeal.

Brazil lived through its economic heyday during Lula’s 2003-2010 presidency, but plunged into its worst-ever recession under his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff. She was impeached and booted from office in 2016 for financial wrongdoing.

Many blame the Workers Party for the country’s current economic malaise.

The result is one of the most polarised elections Brazil has seen. Voter rejection of the two leading candidates is bigger than their polled support.

Voters stuck between the far right and the left are likely to make their choice “more from fear or from anger than from conviction”, said Geraldo Monteiro, a political analyst at Rio de Janeiro State University.

The run-off round could be “even more radical, maybe with violence,” he warned.

The winner will rule the world’s eighth biggest economy: a nation with 210 million inhabitants and abundant natural resources whose top trading partner is China.

Should Bolsonaro become president, he will have to form legislative alliances.

His ultraconservative Social Liberal Party has just eight deputies in the outgoing, 513-seat lower house of congress.

After Sunday’s general election, in which new federal and state legislatures will also be chosen, it might at best pick up only a handful of seats.

But Bolsonaro, a Catholic, is close to the evangelical church lobby that includes many lawmakers. Deputies linked to Brazil’s powerful agro-business lobby are also siding with him.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2018