Brazilian far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro appears poised to win the presidential election runoff on Sunday by a comfortable margin. According to the latest Datafolha poll on Saturday, Bolsonaro's lead dropped by eight points in the last nine days, but with 55 percent of voters supporting him, he still maintains a 10-point lead over Fernando Haddad from the Workers' Party, whose polls are at 45 percent.

Analysts say the margin is too great for Haddad to catch up in the remaining hours before the final result.

No second-placed candidate from the first round of voting has ever won a presidential runoff in Brazil.

But Haddad remains hopeful.

While closing his campaign on Saturday in Heliopolis, Sao Paulo's biggest favela, or slum, he posted on twitter that Bolsonaro is losing ground because "people are starting to know him."

"I hope there is still time for people to come to understand what a hateful man he is," he added.

According to Paulo Baia, a political analyst at Rio de Janeiro's State University, "people identify with Bolsonaro's speech because in terms of the imagination, of magical thinking, he solves public safety issues and placates their fear."

Bolsonaro is a 63-year-old ex-army captain turned politician, a congressman since the early 1990s with almost no legislative record or previous political accomplishments. He is best known for his provocative sexist, homophobic and racist comments and his nostalgia for Brazil's dictatorship, including the torture and murder of opponents. He embraces the label "Trump of the Tropics."

"I am an admirer of President Trump. He wants a great United States. I want a great Brazil," he said in a recent press conference.

Riding a wave of resentment, Bolsonaro promises to sweep away corruption, crime and unemployment, which he blames solely on the Workers' party. As recently as last week he threatened to exile or jail Worker's Party members. 

But his policy platform is vague, analysts say, and consists mainly of allowing private gun ownership, giving police more freedom to kill, reducing the size and number of government ministries and privatizing state-owned enterprises, which might include oil company Petrobras.

On the other hand, Haddad, who replaced jailed former President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva on the ballot, has proposed to follow Workers' Party policies, which include more investments from the state in health care and education and raising the minimum salary to make the economy grow again.

Brazil's economy contracted more than seven percent in both 2015 and 2016 during one of Brazil's worst recessions ever and is expected to grow less than 1.5 percent this year. 

The biggest challenge for Brazil's next president, analysts say, will be to implement any sort of plan and govern effectively because opposition will be fierce and the country is so deeply polarized. 

(Cover Photo: A supporter of Jair Bolsonaro attends an electoral campaign rally in front of Bolsonaro's condominium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 27, 2018. /VCG Photo)