Brazilians vote in high-stakes presidential election pitting Lula against Flávio Bolsonaro

Brazilians go to the polls on Sunday in the first round of a highly polarised and high-stakes presidential election that could change not only the direction of Latin America’s largest country but that of the entire region.

The election pits the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, against the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump and the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after his failed 2022 re-election attempt.

Brazil is one of the few Latin American countries that still has a leftwing government after a wave of rightwing and far-right electoral victories across the region and the US takeover of Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

The 80-year-old Lula has positioned himself as one of the last regional leaders still willing to say no to Trump, and has recently accused the US president of trying to interfere in Brazil’s election in Bolsonaro’s favour.

Like his father, who was Brazil’s president during Trump’s first term, Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, frequently praises the US president and has pledged to join the US-led anti-drug cartel coalition that has killed dozens in airstrikes and carried out military operations across the region.

Lula and Bolsonaro have alternated as frontrunners in the final stretch, making the outcome unpredictable. In recent days, both have focused on persuading undecided voters in hopes of reaching 50% plus one vote; if neither does, there will be a runoff on 25 October.

“My first choice would be Jair Bolsonaro but, since he is under house arrest and there is no other rightwing candidate strong enough to take on the current president, I’m going with Flávio,” said Claudinei Ferreira Viana, 45, a workshop manager in Pinhais, in Paraná state.

At the beginning of the year, polls suggested Bolsonaro voters would have preferred a ticket led by the São Paulo governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, or the former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro. But the former president chose his eldest son.

The campaign was also marked by a scandal in which the senator was caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8m (£20m) to fund a film about his father, as well as speculation that Bolsonaro might strip the country’s widely cherished patron saint of her status, but he has nevertheless remained highly competitive.

For many analysts, that reflects a combination of a straightforward transfer of his father’s voter base – Jair Bolsonaro lost to Lula by less than two percentage points in 2022 – and an anti-Lula vote, with the president still facing high rejection rates despite strong social and economic indicators.

The incumbent’s campaign has also been hit by corruption allegations – still under investigation – involving his son and a former aide, as well as a scandal involving supreme court justices which, despite having no connection to Lula, is seen as fuelling an “anti-system” vote and, by extension, an anti-incumbent one.

Brazilians will also elect 27 state governors, members of state legislatures, all 513 federal congress members and 54 of the country’s 81 senators in Sunday’s vote.

AMC, 40, who asked to be identified only by her initials because she fears reprisals from the local conservative government where she works in the interior of Amazonas state, will vote for Lula on Sunday “because of the many programmes he created to support the most vulnerable groups”.