For Lula, indicated for months as the favorite in the polls, the main challenge comes, once again, from the ultra-conservative right with the candidacy of Rio de Janeiro senator Flavio Bolsonaro, 45 year old eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as an expression of the Liberal Party. An evangelical lawyer, the new leader of the Trumpian right in Brazil has promoted the demands of his father, who is under house arrest with a 27-year sentence for his participation in the coup attempt in 2023.
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Flavio Bolsonaro - ©Ansa
The one between Lula and Bolsonaro is an all-out challenge with the two candidates distant not only from a political point of view but also in terms of personal history. Lula da Silva was born to a poor, illiterate family in a rural area in Pernambuco. Seventh of eight children, he moved to São Paulo at a young age where he began working as a metalworker at just 14 years old. At 19 he lost the little finger of his left hand due to a press accident. In the difficult years of the dictatorship he became national leader of the union. In 1980 he founded the Workers' Party with Chico Mendes.
Brazil comes to the vote after a bitter electoral campaign, marked by serious judicial scandals. For months we have been talking about nothing other than the corruptive power of the financier Daniel Vorcaro and the bankruptcy of his Banco Master. In recent years Vorcaro has been able to support a large part of the country's political and economic establishment. If in May the alleged connections had damaged Bolsonaro, who is still under investigation for illicit financing, more recently attention has shifted to the banker's relationships with Alexandre de Moraes, judge of the Supreme Federal Court, the same one who condemned Bolsonaro's father. Among the issues at the center of the debate, the relationship with Washington stands out with Bolsonaro's proposal to join the "Shield of the Americas" promoted by Trump together with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Paraguay.
In the duel between the two candidates who - according to the polls - alone would garner around 80% of the vote, is the influence of Donald Trump who, after Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia, is aiming for a political "turnaround" in the last great democratic nation in South America led by progressives. The prospect of electing an ultra-conservative government capable of guaranteeing Washington unprecedented political-military and economic dominance on the continent is the real stakes of the vote.
In addition to Lula and Bolsonaro jr., there are a total of 13 candidates running for the Palacio do Planalto, confirming how the presidential challenge is more participatory than ever. Clariana Barao, lawyer, is supported by the Christian Democrats (centre-right). The Brazilian Communist Party (left) supports retiree Edmilson Costa while writer Augusto Cury runs for the centrist Avante party. The primary school teacher Hertz Dias represents the Unified Socialist Workers Party (left) while the entrepreneur Renan Santos represents the Mission Party (right). The candidates also include the doctor Ronaldo Caiado for the Social Democratic Party (centre-right), the journalist Rui Costa Pimenta for the Workers' Cause Party (left) and the dentist Samara Martins for Unità Popolare (left). Closing the list are the veterinarian Wilson Grassi of Democrata (right), the entrepreneur Romeu Zema of the New Party (right) and the official Leonardo Avalanche of the Brazilian Labor Renewal Party (right).
Even without reaching, in most cases, double figures according to the latest voting intentions, the votes obtained by each candidate could prove decisive in the run-off phase.
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