Who is Fernando Haddad? Brazil’s last hope against anti-LGBT Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil’s left-wing candidate Fernando Haddad has advanced to the second round of the country’s presidential election, where he will face far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

The Social Liberal Party (PSL) candidate Bolsonaro was the winner of the first election round on Sunday (October 7), failing short of the 50 percent outright majority, but nonetheless accruing 46 percent of the vote.

Haddad, the candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT), who was selected to replace Lula Da Silva on the ballots in September after a court barred the convicted former leader from running, received 29 percent of the vote.

Brazil’s presidential candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT), Fernando Haddad and the vice-president candidate Manuela D’Avila hold their hands up after the first round of the general elections at a hotel, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 7, 2018. (Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty)

The remaining 25 percent of the votes went to the other 11 candidates who ran for president.

Haddad will need to unite those non-Bolsonaro voters to defeat him on October 28, as the former military officer and Rio de Janeiro lawmaker, who has a record of racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes, has consistently been leading the polls since Lula dropped out of the race.

The contrast between the two candidates, particularly on LGBT+ rights, could not be starker.

Haddad vs. Bolsonaro

As education minister both under Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff—until 2012, when he successfully ran as mayor of Sao Paulo—Haddad was responsible for championing an anti-homophobia initiative in schools that Bolsonaro strongly opposed and that Rousseff eventually suspended.

Haddad has renewed his focus on homophobia in his campaign, promising to criminalise homophobia and transphobia, as The Huffington Post Brasil reported.

Haddad has attacked Bolsonaro for his views on women, minorities and LGBT+ people, saying the far-right leader has a “psychological problem.”