Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro is aiming to overtake President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round of the election.
Campaign strategists for the conservative senator believe that leading the race after the opening vote will give them the crucial leverage needed to secure backing from Brazil's influential centrão bloc in a second round runoff.
Bolsonaro's primary ambition is to win the presidency outright in the first round, though members of his own campaign privately acknowledge that such an outcome remains a remote possibility. His team calculates that finishing ahead of Lula, depending on the margin of votes, will make it far easier to attract centrist parties or at least prevent them from endorsing the leftist president.
To build momentum, the Liberal Party candidate is investing heavily in a campaign for tactical votes. The effort is designed to draw support away from rival contenders on the right and centre right, focusing particularly on voters determined to defeat Lula's Workers' Party.
Stalled alliances and runoff strategy
The push comes after Bolsonaro failed to build a broader coalition before the official campaign began. He attempted to recruit União Brasil, Progressistas, Republicanos, and the Brazilian Democratic Movement into an alliance. All four chose to remain neutral, freeing their state branches to endorse whichever candidates they preferred and leaving the Liberal Party to run alone.
Campaign allies believe the political landscape will change in a head to head runoff against Lula. They see an opening to court those centrist parties more forcefully in the second round, when party leaderships will depend far less on the results of concurrent state elections.
Under Brazil's electoral system, a presidential candidate must win more than 50 percent of valid votes in the first round to avoid a runoff between the two leading contenders. The centrão, an informal coalition of pragmatic parties in the National Congress, holds the balance of power in Brasília and plays a decisive role in delivering governing majorities at the Planalto Palace.
