Leading Brazilian candidate to skip 1st run-off debate

The front-runner in Brazil‘s presidential election will skip the first TV debate before the Oct.28 run-off due to medical reasons.

Doctors of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that he’s unfit for Thursday’s scheduled debate. He has skipped other debates since being stabbed on Sept. 6. He left the hospital on Sept. 29.

Bolsonaro won Sunday’s first-round vote by 46 percent, followed by left-leaning Fernando Haddad’s 29 percent.

Haddad told reporters that he would go to a hospital to debate Bolsonaro if needed.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, jabbed at Haddad on Twitter, calling him a “puppet of a jailed crook.”

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was barred from running due to a corruption conviction and picked Haddad to replace him as Workers’ Party candidate.