Brazil's presidential election campaign officially began Tuesday with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leading all polls against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro amid growing concern of political violence and threats to democracy.
Da Silva, whose two-term presidency ran from 2003 to 2010, has already taken to wearing a bulletproof vest for public appearances. He was scheduled to speak at an engine factory Tuesday morning, but federal police officers asked him to cancel the event due to security concerns, according to his campaign. Instead, the leftist is launching his seventh bid for the presidency at a Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a manufacturing city outside Sao Paulo where he rose to fame as an union leader in the 1970s.
