RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, currently second in opinion polls, said Tuesday he will scrap the government's controversial public spending cap if he wins Sunday's election.
The Worker's Party (PT) candidate unveiled his intention to discard the contentious cap at a campaign event in Rio de Janeiro, and said he will approve a tax reform to demonstrate the country's finances are "in order."
He also proposed that the poor should pay less tax.
Brazil's public spending cap, approved by Congress last year as part of the government's austerity measures, limited government spending increases to the rate of inflation for the next 20 years.
Government opposition and unions roundly criticized the measure, Constitutional Amendment 95, saying it hampered much-needed investment in education and public health.
Haddad, the former Minister of Education, said, "we want to revoke Constitutional Amendment 95 by way of a tax reform ... to give people confidence that public finances are in order."
He added that tax reform would be first approved to enrich the poor so that they are more active in the consumer market.
On Tuesday Haddad visited the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in northern Rio de Janeiro, a world-renowned institution for the study of tropical medicine.
During his visit he highlighted his party's plan for increased public health spending and set a goal of a 6-percent-GDP investment in public health.
"We reached and then surpassed this figure in education when I was the minister. We need to raise investment to have space for further development," said Haddad.
According to an Ibope poll on Monday, Haddad is currently in second place with 21 percent votes in the opinion polls, 10 percent behind far-right Social Liberal Party candidate, Jair Bolsonaro.
However, Ibope predicts the two candidates would each receive 42 percent of the vote in the likely second round run-off on Oct. 28.
