The build-up to the upcoming Brazilian elections has been quite heated till now and it got worse as a supporter of president Jair Bolsonaro stabbed to death an opposition supporter. The 42-year-old Benedito Cardoso dos Santos, who supported the leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was killed in the state of Mato Grosso and the incident has flared tensions in the area once again.
The police said on Friday that they have arrested 24-year-old Rafael Silva de Oliveira for stabbing Silva with a knife and he has already confessed, according to a report on Reuters.
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The situation in Brazil has been quite unstable in the recent past with constant clashes between the two sides. With Bolsonaro currently trailing in the polls, the authorities have also been accused of foul play and in a statement, Juanita Goebertus Estrada, the director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, urged both candidates to “energetically condemn” any untoward incidents.
Lula, who was in Rio de Janeiro on Friday, said that there was a “climate of hatred in the electoral process which is completely abnormal”. He also requested the authorities to look more into the violence and find out if these attacks “had been ordered, or guided, or if it is a political strategy”.
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This is not the first time that a Lula supporter has lost their lives leading to the elections. An official from his party was shot and killed by a federal prison guard who proclaimed his support for Bolsonaro.
