00:00The final week leading up to the general elections of Sunday, October 4th, where more than 150 million citizens are
00:06called to the polls.
00:07More details on what's at stake with our special envoy, Belén de los Santos, who is live from Rio de
00:12Janeiro, with us in From the South.
00:14Welcome once more, Belén.
00:16Hello, Luis. Once again, we are in downtown Rio de Janeiro right now, and a little bit more we've been
00:22talking about the upcoming elections in Brazil.
00:24It's important the structural things that are coming up and how to understand this major election for the country and
00:32also for the continent.
00:33Let's go over a little bit on what exact decisions are being up for grabs, are being elected in this
00:41moment.
00:41Of course, we're talking about the presidency and vice presidency, but also the governors for the 27 districts, that is
00:50the 26 states and the federal districts, are being elected as well.
00:55And these judges are also facing a run-up if they do not reach the 50% of all votes
01:02in this upcoming Sunday.
01:04And apart from the president and the governors, we also have two-thirds of the Senate, that is 54 senators
01:13are also being elected.
01:15Each district is going to pick two senators.
01:18So in the ballots, the people going to the polls are going to have the possibility of choosing two separate
01:24senators in order to complete those two-thirds that are being renewed in this instance, in this 26th election for
01:32Brazil.
01:32So that means that the Congress is going to change significantly.
01:37We also have all 513 positions in the lower chamber also being elected.
01:44That means a different Congress altogether in this new term.
01:49And that means that the possibility of implementing change for either government that could reach the presidency on this October
02:00being October 4th or in the run-up, if we have one on October 25th, will also be conditioned by
02:08this new Congress that will be elected as well.
02:12So that is a little bit of what is also at stake.
02:16And we were talking about also the importance of the governor's election.
02:19So what we are seeing on the ground, and this is replicated all throughout the different states, is that the
02:25election for governor is also very important.
02:28So we do not only have the presidential candidates on the ballot, but also the different campaigns for each governor,
02:36and in every state, there are different possibilities aligned with one of the presidential options as well.
02:45So in that sense, we could say that the election, of course, has a great weight at a national level,
02:50but is also played at every district at a provincial level in terms of what is the main leadership that
03:00will be chosen for each district in particular.
03:03So that is what is happening right now.
03:06We will continue bringing up more information in this week up to Sunday, where the main election day will take
03:14place.
03:15And at that moment, we are going to see if the upcoming years of Brazil are defined, or if we
03:21have to wait until October 25th, please.
03:24Thank you, Bill, and for the detailed information on what Brazilians are going to be voting on Sunday, we'll stay
03:30on tune for everything ahead of this important election day for Brazilians.
