Tens of thousands of Brazilian women are expected to take to the streets on Saturday, protesting what they see as the misogynist ways of one of Brazil's most divisive presidential candidates in years: right-wing Congressman Jair Bolsonaro.
In a series of marches planned in 80 cities stretching from Manaus in the Amazon jungle to the megacity of Sao Paulo in the nation's southeast, demonstrators organized under the hashtag #EleNao, or #NotHim, are pledging not to vote for the candidate who has made light of rape and called the gender pay gap justified.
63-year-old Bolsonaro, a federal deputy from Rio de Janeiro, is the frontrunner in opinion polls, winning over many Brazilians with his ultra-hardline stance on crime, unvarnished rhetoric, and a career that has been largely free of corruption accusations.
Yet he has also repelled many by commentary widely considered sexist, misogynist, and homophobic.
"Women of Brazil, women outside Brazil, all women, it's time to join in," said Ludimilla Teixeira, one of the organizers. "Either we join now to fight or we're going to gather to mourn later."
The women's campaign was launched in early September with a Facebook group "Women united against Bolsonaro."
It called on women from all political persuasions to come together "against the advancement and strengthening of machismo, misogyny, racism, homophobia and other prejudice."
The hashtag went viral, gaining more than four million follows.
"We cannot allow fascism to advance in Brazil," Teixeira said, calling Bolsonaro a "disastrous" candidate.
Bolsonaro is recovering in hospital after being stabbed and seriously wounded by a left-wing activist during a rally on September 6.
He recently angered women by seeking to justify a yawning wage gap between female and male employees.
The candidate has previously argued against employing women if it was likely they would become pregnant.
One of the activists in the campaign, actress and singer Leticia Sabatella, said Bolsonaro was "an extremely fascist, racist, homophobic, candidate."
"He underestimates women, underestimates homosexuals, underestimates blacks," said actress Caroline Abras, one of dozens of celebrities backing the "Not Him" campaign.
Demonstrations are planned in around a dozen other countries, including Australia, the United States, Canada, France, Spain, Argentina and Portugal.
"There is no record of such a broad mobilization of women," in recent Brazilian history, said analyst Ligia Fabris Campos, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
Joao Feres Junior, professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro's State University, said the women's movement was making gender an election issue in Brazil for the first time.
"It is women themselves who are reacting as women to a candidate, not to support a candidate, but as citizens faced with a political project that excludes them," he said.
Right-wing women supporters are planning a rival pro-Bolsonaro rally in Rio de Janeiro.
Bolsonaro's relative lack of support among women could spell trouble for the candidate, a former army captain who has become the market favorite after embracing free-market policies on the campaign trail.
His biggest rival and likely opponent in a probable second round run-off is leftist candidate Fernando Haddad.
Former Sao Paulo mayor Haddad is running for the Workers Party, whose jailed founder, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was barred from the election by a corruption conviction. Despite widespread dislike of the Workers Party, Haddad has surged in polls with support from the working class and many voters who cannot stomach his right-wing opponent.
According to a recent survey by pollster Ibope, 18 percent of women plan to vote for Bolsonaro in the Oct. 7 first round, versus 36 percent of men. In an Oct. 28 second round scenario, among those who expressed a preference, women plumped 47 to 30 percent for Haddad over Bolsonaro, while among men 47 percent went for Bolsonaro, and 37 percent for Haddad.
Bolsonaro also said Friday he would only accept the result of next month's election if he wins, suggesting that any victory by a rival would be through fraud.
He did not provide any evidence that there will be vote fraud, but he said he doesn't trust Brazil's top electoral court.
"From what I see in the streets, I won't accept any result that is not my election," the candidate told TV Band.
Bolsonaro has accused the rival Workers' Party of having fraud as its plan B in the elections.
His comments about vote fraud have been rejected by Brazil's electoral court and the Organization of American States, which is overseeing the elections.
A Datafolha poll showed on Friday that in a simulated runoff vote, Haddad would get 45 percent voter support, beating Bolsonaro with 39 percent, with the rest of those asked saying they were undecided or would annul their ballot. Voting is compulsory in Brazil.
Ciro Gomes, a center-left populist, had 11 percent, while business-friendly candidate Geraldo Alckmin registered 10 percent in a first-round scenario.
Datafolha surveyed 9,000 voters across Brazil from Wednesday through Friday. The poll, published by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Haddad, a former mayor of Sao Paulo, has pledged to govern in a pragmatic fashion, but his rise has spooked markets and sent Brazil's currency toward historic lows.
The most divisive election since the end of Brazil's military rule three decades ago has become increasingly polarized between right and left, raising concerns about the future of the country's democracy.
Bolsonaro, an admirer of Brazil's 1964 to 1985 military regime, has accused the Workers Party of trying to rig the elections. His running mate, retired General Hamilton Mourão, has said the armed forces should carry out a coup if the country's judiciary cannot end political corruption.
The conservative candidate was expected to be released from hospital on Friday, but his departure was delayed because of fever and a minor infection.
Instead, he spent most of his day denying a report in the magazine Veja in which an ex-wife accused him of fraud, tax evasion and stealing money she kept in a bank safe in Rio de Janeiro. His campaign pledged to take the magazine to court because of the report.
Bolsonaro's ex-wife Ana Cristina Valle said she was "hot headed" when she made the accusations. She is currently running for Congress using her ex-husband's surname.
