In Brazil's poor northeast, right-winger makes inroads
The home of Crenilton Santos Ferreira and his wife, Claudia Adriana, sits at the end of a sandy path in the scorched northeast Brazilian state of Maranhao, the poorest in the nation.
Maranhenses, as locals are known, cast almost 80 percent of their ballots for the leftist Workers Party (PT) in Brazil's presidential election in 2014. This month, they re-elected their governor, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, with almost 60 percent of the vote.
Ferreira, his wife Claudia Adriana, 37, and their children Izabelli and Isaac pose in front of their house.
Ferreira drives with his family towards the Assembleia de Deus Cristo para Todos Church.
Ferreira washes dishes inside his house.
Claudia Adriana prepares to cook fish.
Claudia Adriana picks fresh parsley.
Ferreira sits in a hammock at his house.
Ferreira rests in a hammock.
Ferreira's son Isaac watches TV.
Photographs hang on a wall of Ferreira's house.
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Despite years of offensive comments about women and blacks, the former army captain is on the verge of winning the presidency with his law-and-order rhetoric, conservative social views and vows to fight political corruption.
"My vote is for Bolsonaro because he defends the value of family, Christian values," said Ferreira, a pastor in the outback town of Barreirinhas. "He doesn't defend a party, he defends a nation: Brazil."
(Left to right) Maria da Luz, Raimundo Ferreira, and their children Ida, 14, Maria Natividade, 18, holding her baby, and Pedro, 16, pose in front of their house.
Pedro rides his horse.
A horse belonging to the family of Maria da Luz and Raimundo Ferreira.
Maria Natividade hangs clothes of her baby.
Maria da Luz walks with a bucket of water to wash the dishes.
Maria da Luz bathes her three-month-old granddaughter Maria Vitoria.
Raimundo Ferreira has his blood pressure measured.
Ida, 14, daughter of Maria da Luz and Raimundo Ferreira, reads a book.
Maria Vitoria sleeps in a hammock.
Maria da Luz holds her granddaughter as the baby smiles at her mother Maria Natividade (right), 18, and her aunt Ida.
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She receives about 500 reais ($135) a month from a welfare program known as Bolsa Familia, while Pires receives another 650 reais in pension benefits.
That money, Pires said, has helped the family buy clothing, pencils and notebooks that their children need to attend school.
Even Ferreira, the Bolsonaro-supporting pastor, relies on the Bolsa Familia program to make ends meet. He gets 163 reais per month to support his two children, complementing his salary of 800 reais.
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Yet, conversations with fellow church members helped turn him sharply against the PT, which upset many evangelicals by supporting gay rights and sex education in school.
Ferreira talks politics via satellite radio with Pedro Aldi Damasceno, a senior pastor in the state capital of Sao Luis, who does not shy away from the subject on the pulpit.
"We're Christians, we defend real Christianity with ardor and zeal," Damasceno told Reuters in an interview.
"There's no peace between us and Haddad. He's the enemy, the enemy of the believers."
