Candidates running for office in Brazil can now begin advertising their campaigns on the internet and in print media. However, ads on radio or television must wait 10 more days..

Polls conducted before the official start of the campaign placed Lula ahead with about 45% of voter support. Bolsonaro was a distant second, at 30%.

The former Brazilian president opened his campaign with a video released at midnight on his social media platforms, in which he asks for a vote to "change the life of the people again."

"Hunger is back, inflation is scaring families and the minimum wage is not enough to pay for a basic food basket," said the former president in the video, entitled "Lula 2022: the hope for a happy Brazil again," evoking the times when he governed, between 2003 and 2010.

Both candidates expect to hold electoral events of great symbolic value on Tuesday, Aug. 16.

In addition, Lula announced a visit to a car factory in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, the region where he began to build his political career in the 1980s as a union leader.

Bolsonaro plans to start his campaign in Juiz de Fora, the city where he suffered a stabbing during an election rally in 2017, just weeks before the elections that brought him to the presidency.

"I invite everyone to participate in this civic act in favor of Brazil, in Juiz de Fora, the city where I was reborn. God, homeland, family and freedom," said Bolsonaro in a video broadcast on the social media platform of his current party, the Liberal Party.

The candidates will also participate in the inauguration ceremony of the new head of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes.