Presidential candidate Ciro Gomes attends a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
September 25, 2018
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian presidential candidate Ciro Gomes, who sits in third place in polls, underwent routine medical exams at a Sao Paulo hospital on Tuesday, his campaign said.
Gomes was being attended at the Sirio-Libanes hospital, his press office told Reuters, confirming he underwent routine exams, but providing no other details.
The center-left Gomes is behind front-running, right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who has been hospitalized at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo since being stabbed in an assassination attempt earlier this month.
Brazil’s election is one of the most turbulent since the country’s return to democracy three decades ago, coming after four years of unprecedented graft investigations revealed stunning levels of political corruption that has fanned voter disdain for the political class.
Gomes, a tough-talking former governor and finance minister, has worked to position himself as a moderate alternative between Bolsonaro, who has openly praised Brazil’s 1964-85 dictatorship, and Workers Party’s candidate Fernando Haddad, the hand-picked successor of the party’s jailed leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who remains the country’s most popular politician but is banned from running by his corruption conviction.
Polls indicate that a runoff vote is likely, a requirement if no candidate wins a majority in the first ballot on Oct. 7, and that Haddad would likely beat Bolsonaro.
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Sandra Maler; Writing by Brad Brooks)
