Like their bosses at the top of the list, the men vying to be Brazil’s next vice president are polar opposites.

Here’s a look at the running mates playing wingman for far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s runoff.

As in the 2018 campaign that brought him to power, Bolsonaro, a former army captain with close ties to the armed forces, has chosen a military man to be his running mate: General Walter Braga Netto.

But unlike current Vice President Hamilton Mourao, who has – sometimes publicly – fallen out with his boss over politics, Braga Netto is seen as a die-hard Bolsonaro supporter.

The 65-year-old army reserve general has held top positions in Bolsonaro’s government, first as chief of staff and then as defense minister.

In the former position, he notably oversaw the government’s response to Covid-19 – described by critics as catastrophic after the pandemic claimed more than 680,000 lives in Brazil, second only to the United States.

Born in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte, the capital of the main battleground state of Minas Gerais, Braga Netto was appointed general and chief of security in 2009 when Brazil hosted the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Two years later, then-President Michel Temer ordered the military to take over security in Rio state amid a spate of violent crime — and put Braga Netto in charge of the operation.

The intervention, which lasted almost a year, produced mixed results: some violent crime statistics fell, but killings by police officers rose sharply.

Braga Netto sparked controversy in March 2021, shortly after Bolsonaro appointed him defense minister, when he said the 1964 coup that established more than two decades of military dictatorship in Brazil should be “celebrated” for “pacifying” the country .

Clean-cut and rugged, he runs for his first choice.

Ex-President Lula has meanwhile won over a former enemy as his running mate: veteran centrist Geraldo Alckmin.

The pro-business former candidate is Lula’s bet to win over voters who mistrust Bolsonaro’s warnings that his Labor Party represents “communism.”

The two aren’t exactly an obvious match: Alckmin ran against then-President Lula in Brazil’s 2006 election and lost in the runoff.

But they say they have joined forces to defeat a common enemy in Bolsonaro.

“People might think it’s weird,” Alckmin said in March.

“I ran against Lula in 2006. But we never compromised the issue of democracy.”

Alckmin rose to prominence as the governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest and wealthiest state, in the 2000s and 2010s.

Known for being a good administrator but a boring politician, the mild-mannered 69-year-old has earned a reputation as a solid manager popular in the business and financial communities.

But he was politically forgotten, winning less than five percent of the vote in the first round of the 2018 presidential campaign that put Bolsonaro in power.

Born in Pindamonhangaba, a small town outside of Sao Paulo, Alckmin grew up in a devout Catholic family.

He was a city councilman and mayor before winning a seat in Congress and eventually the governorship.

The risk that the charismatic Lula will be overshadowed by him seems small.

Alckmin’s nickname is “Xuxu popsicles” — a nod to chayote, a bland vegetable widely grown in Brazil.

During the election campaign he made a joke out of it, joking that “xuxu” with “lula” – the ex-president’s name means “squid” – is now a popular national dish.