Brazilian presidential candidate of the Social Liberal Party Jair Bolsonaro arrives at a polling station during the general elections, in Marechal Hermes, in the north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Oct. 7, 2018. Brazilians began to cast votes in the general elections on Sunday expected to produce a new president and state and federal legislators. (Xinhua/Thiago Ribeiro/AGIF/AGENCIA ESTADO)
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct.7 (Xinhua) -- Brazilians began to cast votes in the general elections on Sunday expected to produce a new president and state and federal legislators.
Polling booths are open across the South American country, with those in Acre state two hours behind those in the capital city Brasilia due to a time difference.
In the elections, in addition to electing a new president and vice president, over 147 million voters will also choose 27 new governors and vice-governors, 54 senators, 513 federal and 1,059 state representatives.
The voting will run from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time (from 1100 GMT to 2000 GMT). Preliminary results are expected to be available by midnight thanks to the exclusive use of electronic ballots, which makes it easy to count the ballots.
According to the Brazilian government, some 240,000 people from the local and federal police, the Armed Forces, traffic control, electoral court and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency are working to ensure security during the election. Among them, the military personnel are in charge of transporting the ballots to the voting sites, some of them in remote rural areas.
In a speech broadcast by radio and TV on Saturday night, President of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Rosa Weber called for tolerance in this election.
"May words like dialogue and tolerance return to our civic dictionary," she said.
Recent polls showed Jair Bolsonaro of the far-right Social Liberal Party taking the lead in public support, followed by the leftist Workers' Party's candidate Fernando Haddad, who replaced former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after Lula was banned from running.
