BRASILIA, Brazil _ Brazil's leading presidential candidate, far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, said that he wouldn't accept an election result that doesn't grant him victory.
Speaking Friday evening in a live televised interview on TV Band from his hospital room, where he is recovering after a knife attack, Bolsonaro was asked how he thought the military would react if Fernando Haddad, the leftist Workers' Party candidate, were to be elected president.
"I can't speak for the commanders," he replied. "From what I see on the streets, I won't accept any result other than my election."
Bolsonaro currently leads the opinion polls ahead of the first-round vote Oct. 7, followed closely by Haddad. In a field of 13 candidates, neither man looks likely to win the necessary 50 percent plus one needed to win outright, meaning they will face each other in a runoff on Oct. 28. The latest Ibope poll showed Bolsonaro with 27 percent support and Haddad with 21 percent, though the left-winger has the edge over the ex-paratrooper in a second-round scenario. Bolsonaro's incendiary rhetoric has helped fuel his rise, but it has also led to the highest rejection rating among all the candidates.
Asked in the same interview about the possibility of the Workers' Party winning, Bolsonaro said that the only way that could happen would be through electoral fraud, adding that he believes employees from the electoral court may try to tamper with the results.
The candidate expects to be released from hospital in the next few days. He told his interviewer that his doctors have ordered him to stay at home until Oct. 10.
