Only three of six invited candidates showed up for the first presidential debate of Brazil's election, hosted by TV Bandeirantes in Sao Paulo on Sunday, with the contenders who attended using much of the opening segment to criticize their absent rivals.
Renan Santos of the Missao party, Ronaldo Caiado of the Partido Social Democratico (PSD) and Augusto Cury of Avante appeared in the studio and focused the first block of the debate on public security proposals and the state of education in Brazil.
Security proposals
Santos said he would order a Guarantee of Law and Order operation, a mechanism that allows the armed forces to be deployed domestically, in regions affected by organized crime. He also proposed building what he called "superprisons" capable of adding up to 500,000 spaces to the prison system.
Santos said he would intervene in states that failed to act against organized crime if he were elected, naming Ceara and Bahia, governed respectively by Elmano de Freitas and Jeronimo Rodrigues, both of the Workers' Party (PT), as states that could face federal intervention under his government.
He said that if the governors of Ceara and Bahia were re-elected, he would carry out an intervention if they refused to confront organized crime, calling it "the war" that would follow.
Caiado, a former governor of Goias state, proposed confiscating the assets of men who attack women and transferring them to the families of femicide victims, calling the measure a form of "educational penalty."
Caiado said such a man typically attacks a woman because he believes he owns her, describing this as how what he called a coward operates. He said he would bring a bill to Congress to confiscate the assets of such offenders, in addition to extending sentences to between 20 and 40 years depending on the severity of the violence, with no early sentence reduction until 90% of the term is served.
Education proposals
On education, Santos proposed redirecting funding from culture to education, particularly basic schooling. He said that if a municipality failed to meet targets set by the federal government, its mayor could become ineligible to hold office.
Santos said that instead of a mayor spending on a concert by singer Wesley Safadao, funds should go to security, health and education, particularly basic education, adding that municipalities that improved basic education would receive more money, while mayors who failed to deliver could face ineligibility.
Caiado argued for aligning curricula between state and municipal schools. As governor of Goias, he said he amended the state constitution to establish a partnership with all mayors that brought the region's curriculum into alignment.
Cury, when asked about the topic, said the education system excludes neurodivergent students. He criticized what he called a "Cartesian education" and called for a revolution in public schooling, saying teachers act as cooks preparing knowledge for an audience with no appetite, due to digital intoxication and a cold, dry style of teaching.
A debate without the front-runners
Santos, Caiado and Cury were the only candidates to take part in the first presidential debate of the election. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the PT, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro of the Partido Liberal (PL) and Romeu Zema of Novo were invited but did not appear at the Sao Paulo studios.
Zema's campaign attributed his absence to Lula's decision not to attend, saying in a statement that the debate's date had been moved from August 16 to August 23 on the expectation that Lula would take part and ensure a plurality of views, and that without Lula or other candidates present, the rescheduling had lost its original purpose.
According to reporting by CNN Brasil, aides to Lula had already signaled that his chance of participating was minimal, and his campaign never even collected the credentials needed for the debate. The assessment within his camp was that he would become the main target of the other eligible right-leaning and centre-right candidates. Although he skipped the TV Bandeirantes debate, Lula gave an interview to Record TV that aired at the same time as the debate.
Bolsonaro's campaign concluded that without Lula on stage, there was no advantage in taking part, since the senator would become the other candidates' main target instead. PL party president Valdemar Costa Neto told CNN Brasil that Bolsonaro should only attend debates where Lula is also present.
Cury initially announced he would pull out of the debate over the absence of what he called the race's "main players," making the announcement on social media outside the studio shortly before the debate began. He later reversed the decision, saying he would take part out of respect for the broadcaster.
How the candidates were positioned
TV Bandeirantes held a draw attended by campaign advisers and coordinators to determine where each candidate would stand, arranged from left to right as seen by viewers.
The resulting order placed Santos at the far left podium, followed by Lula and Bolsonaro, with Caiado, Cury and Zema completing the line-up. Any candidate who chose not to attend would have their podium left empty.
Debate rules and eligibility
At the start of the debate, moderators run programmed rounds with identical questions put to every participant on the campaign's central themes, giving each candidate two minutes to present proposals.
In rounds where journalists or rival candidates ask questions, the person posing the question has up to one minute to formulate it, while the candidate questioned has four minutes to respond, including any rebuttal and counter-rebuttal.
Under Brazilian electoral law, candidates are eligible to take part in debates if their party holds at least five seats in the National Congress and their candidacy registration has been approved. The number of participants and other debate rules are set jointly by the parties and the broadcaster, with notice given to the Electoral Court.
