Brazil votes with far-right candidate favourite

A far-right military man vowing to rescue Brazil from crisis with a firm grip looks set to become the country's next president as it heads to the polls for a divisive run-off election Sunday.

Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain known for his denigrating remarks on women, gays and blacks, has an eight- to 10-point lead over leftist Fernando Haddad going in, according to two final opinion polls released Saturday, which gave him about 55 per cent of the vote.

And while Haddad has made up ground -- he trailed by as much as 18 points two weeks ago -- it would take a dramatic surge for him to win.

"This thing is going to turn around," Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor, buoyantly told thousands of supporters at his final campaign rally Saturday.

Bolsonaro made his own final pitch on social media, the only place he has campaigned since an attacker stabbed him in the stomach at a rally last month, sending him to the hospital for three weeks.

"God willing, tomorrow will be our new independence day," he tweeted.

Coming on the heels of a punishing recession and staggering corruption scandal, the Latin American giant's elections have thrown up a spectacular cast of characters, even by the standards of these divisive, anti-establishment times.

Bolsonaro, 63, repulses a large part of the electorate -- and many outside the country -- with his overtly misogynistic, homophobic and racist rhetoric.

He once told a lawmaker he opposed that she "wasn't worth raping;" he has said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay; and he commented after visiting one black community that they "do nothing -- they're so useless I doubt they can procreate."